What Next for WUBS Reinvention As Convera
(12 April 2022 – United States) Seven months after Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group announced they were acquiring Western Union Business Solutions (WUBS) for US$910m, the company has rebranded as standalone B2B global payments player “Convera”. What next for the prominent non-bank Business FX provider?
The company has had to gain regulatory approval from up to 60 agencies, engage with WUBS’ incumbent bank partners and appoint a leadership team led by former global head of Amazon Pay, CEO Patrick Gauthier. Convera is now operating as the largest non-bank fintech in B2B payments globally. Despite a strong year that saw Convera expand revenue by 20 percent, Gauthier sees significant opportunities to grow the company further.
Convera’s CEO plans to retain WUBS’ balance of payments and FX hedging but enhance it with technology, noting the group’s go-to-market strategy may see some variations. Servicing different customer types emerges as a key goal for Convera, reenergising the company with a platform that allows Convera to serve a broad range of use cases covering three customer areas including B2B payments such as global trade, B2C payments such as global pensions and C2B payments such as education.
“It's successful, but it's operating way below its potential. We saw an opportunity for growth if we were able to invest in the technology that is underpinning the capabilities that Convera has, as well as continue to lean forward into all of our go-to-market, and in particular our marketing activity” commented Convera CEO Patrick Gauthier.
“Our customers want to do business globally, and they don't always want to do a spot payment – they need to be able to do things ahead of time. What we provide is the capacity to transact globally in a way that reduces the unknown. Our knowhow in hedging, risk management and compliance management is here to shelter our customers from the chaos in the world around them and allow them to have more confidence in how they can run their business and predict their cash flows.”
“As someone who has dealt a lot with retail payments, I am a cryptocurrency sceptic as far as it's used for payments. At present the way it is presented is very difficult for the average person who's not a technologist to really understand. It is also highly volatile, which is not exactly very helpful when it comes to commerce. Crypto is largely a speculative asset class, and speculation means volatility. If you're in the hedging business, volatility is an area where you can provide service to your customers, so I'm certainly curious in exploring with our clients how they think of a future where possibly at times they have to interact with a party that's providing them crypto assets of sorts” Gauthier added.
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