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In an interview with Mukesh Sahu, Country Manager for PingBong highlighted how it is effectively addressing global cross-border payment challenges and ensuring Indian businesses receive the necessary support to propel their business growth.
Read the complete interview
TechGraph: Can you tell us about Pingpong, and how it sets you apart from other similar companies?
Mukesh Sahu: PingPong is a rapidly growing innovative payment service provider for cross-border e-commerce merchants, freelancers, and service providers. Founded by a group of payments and finance professionals in New York in 2015, PingPong has offices in the US, Hong Kong, Luxemburg, Vietnam, Japan, and India. PingPong’s global headquarters are based in Hangzhou, China.
With global employee strength of over 1400, the PingPong team is committed to bringing best-in-class services to our customers and helping them grow their businesses. We are also the first Fintech Company to obtain regulatory access in mainstream countries in Europe and the United States.
Cross-border payments are easy with PingPong. Irrespective of your geographical location in India, our team helps your business to grow and expand across all marketplaces around the world. We ease global payment issues and ensure your business gets the support it needs to move to the next level.
TechGraph: How does Pingpong ensure online payment security and protect customer information during cross-border transactions?
Mukesh Sahu: PingPong Global Solutions Inc. (USA) is registered as a Money Services Business with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Treasury, and a non-depository financial institution on the National Mortgage State Licensing System. We have an OPGSP license from the Reserve Bank of India in India.
Wherever we operate, we abide by local rules and regulations and acquire the required licenses. All the necessary steps are taken to ensure the data security of customers.
TechGraph: How does Pingpong ensure that its cross-border payment system is reliable and able to handle high volumes of transactions across different currencies and payment methods?
Mukesh Sahu: PingPong doesn’t use third-party organizations – companies have never heard of – to protect their money. We acquire our own licenses to prevent surprises with your money from happening.
We have partnered with reputable brands such as Citibank, J.P. Morgan, and Wells Fargo. These brands are licensed to operate efficiently, protect customers’ money, and are subject to regulatory and supervisory frameworks across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
We also provide the highest level of security to keep your money safe including two-factor authentication (personal pin and SMS verification). Moreover, PingPong is the only company that protects customers’ money. No third parties loan us their licenses or services to conduct the business we help you conduct.
TechGraph: What are some of the biggest challenges Pingpong faces in the cross-border payments industry, and how is the company addressing them?
Mukesh Sahu: Cross-border payments present a range of critical challenges that demand immediate attention. In order to facilitate seamless international transactions, the following areas need to be addressed effectively:
Cost – bringing the lowest cost of FX conversion to the customers which in special cases can reach up to less than 0.1% when the volume transacted is high.
Keeping money safe – with so much money being transacted globally, it becomes paramount to ensure high standards in the compliance process to weed out bad actors and ensure a hassle-free experience for the genuine exporter. The idea is to keep money safe for those who transact with us while providing a smooth onboarding and payment experience as well.
Speed – They say time is money, hence this is the third most relevant vertical which needs to be addressed to ensure exporters get their money in the fastest time possible to keep their supply chain operating at an optimal pace.
Interoperability of messaging system – In order to be able to operate with multiple banking channels for collection and remittance, a highly interoperable messaging system is essential. It’s vital that we adopt widely accepted Swift or ISO standards to make it happen.
TechGraph: How does Pingpong minimize transaction fees for your customers when processing cross-border payments?
Mukesh Sahu: We strive to provide competitive pricing to our customers, thereby helping them increase their profit margins. Our goal is to let e-commerce sellers, freelancers, and service providers “Bring Home More Money” with a transparent pricing system. We charge only 1% service provider fees while others charge 2% service fees. Also, we don’t have any third-party involvement which means that money will get transferred directly into the client’s account and that too in your country’s currency.
TechGraph: What are some of the key trends or developments shaping the future of online payment gateways and cross-border payments?
Mukesh Sahu: One of the major developments that have shaped the cross-border payment domain is Neo-banking.
TechGraph: How does Pingpong handle disputes or issues related to cross-border payments, and what measures are in place to ensure that customers are protected and their payments are processed quickly and efficiently?
Mukesh Sahu: In most cases, licensing banks set standards for resolving disputes. Like in the case of traditional offline payments whenever a recall of payment is involved usually the collection banks mandate certain standards of dispute resolution. These standards can involve tracing the source of payments, business details to back a real transaction, and standards for the timely resolution of such issues. We make sure we ascertain those standards to assure our customer’s fair responses are acceptable and compliant with the best practices in the industry.
TechGraph: Can you discuss any recent updates or improvements to your online payment gateway and cross-border payment capabilities that you’re particularly excited about?
Mukesh Sahu: There are multiple ongoing developments in the domain of cross-border payments. UPI is being integrated with multiple payment methods globally. Recently India partnered with Paynow Singapore and is considering over 10 more countries for payment integrations.
UPI is being added as a payment option in the payment gateway by global websites and D2C brands making it easier for Indian customers without a credit card to still order or shop products from global platforms and BNPL is being added as an option by cross-border payments gateways. Digital currency acceptance as an alternate payment option while sourcing products globally are some of the major updates governing the cross-border payment gateway.