Cuscal Partners with JP Morgan to Provide FX Services
Cuscal, an Australian provider of wholesale transactional services to specialist retail financial institutions, has partnered with JP Morgan to provide its customers with a new platform to facilitate the payment and receipt of foreign currency. The service, which became operational in April 2010, is forecast to clear 70,000 inbound payments in the first year.
The new platform will provide Cuscal’s customers, including the majority of Australia’s credit unions, with the ability to offer international payment transfers as a retail banking service to their members at competitive foreign exchange (FX) rates and with low transaction fees.
The new partnership leverages a longstanding relationship between Cuscal and JP Morgan. The two parties worked together to develop a solution that takes into account Cuscal’s unique customer requirements. By outsourcing FX and international payments execution to JP Morgan, Cuscal will offer customers all the functionality of a complete international payments platform without the overheads associated with running a complex global network of correspondent banks.
Adrian Lovney, general manager, Cuscal, said offering an international payment solution was important to accommodate greater consumer demand, brought about by greater mobility of people around the world and more online shopping. “As business becomes increasingly global, partnering with JP Morgan now gives customers access to a complete international payments solution working with a brand we have trusted for many years. We aim to provide a world’s best practice FX solution to our customers and JP Morgan’s willingness to work closely with us throughout the development and implementation of the solution provided important industry expertise on best practice in international clearing,” said Lovney.
All settlement between JP Morgan and Cuscal will occur in Australian dollars. Cuscal is also able to integrate with its existing general ledger and banking platforms, reducing development cost and simplifying operational support.