How Airtm and Bridge Enable Faster, Cheaper Cross-Border Payments
Introduction
Airtm is a global payments platform used by 1.8 million users for international payments. Originally a consumer platform, Airtm was looking to introduce a payment offering to employers in US and Europe to help them pay their global and distributed workforce across borders.
Paying workers in geographies with volatile currencies and high inflation presents a big challenge for employers and workers alike. Employers want to meet global payroll requirements easily and efficiently, while workers need reliable, timely payments that retain their full value despite local currency instability. SWIFT payments take days to settle and cost several percentage points in extra bank fees and foreign exchange. Traditional payment rails were not an option.
Challenge
Airtm sought to use digital assets to expedite money movement and reduce payment friction for businesses and workers. However, executing cross-border payments on chain introduced new challenges for Airtm:
- Global Compliance: Navigating the complex regulatory landscape across multiple countries is expensive and introduces regulatory risks
- Currency Conversion: Smooth and cost-effective currency conversions across diverse markets can be costly and difficult to access for enterprises
- User Trust: Building trust among users in volatile economies was challenging, particularly when introducing a relatively new technology like blockchain for payments.
- Technical Integration: Integrating the Stellar network's capabilities with Airtm's existing platform required careful planning and execution to maintain service reliability and user experience
Airtm needed a partner to integrate local US payment rails to accelerate its entry into new markets, and deliver a modern, seamless payments experience to its millions of users.
Solution
Airtm partnered with Bridge to securely manage digital assets and streamline global payments for customers while ensuring compliance.
With Bridge’s Orchestration API, Airtm can create Virtual Accounts for workers, each with a unique account and routing number. Bridge converts incoming USD payroll payments to USDC, a fully reserved digital dollar, and sends payments to recipients' Airtm wallets via Stellar’s public blockchain. This allows Airtm to facilitate compliant payments from US businesses without the businesses being involved in the funds flow, avoiding local regulatory oversight.
Recipients can access and monitor their payouts in real-time, 24/7, building trust in the solution. Since payouts are in USDC, balances are shielded from currency fluctuations, and recipients can convert funds to local currency using Airtm’s peer-to-peer network and Stellar’s ecosystem of over 400,000 access points.
Results
Bridge’s support for US ACH, FedWire, and European SEPA rails enabled Airtm to expand into the US and Europe without costly integrations or regulatory burdens. Airtm’s enterprise customers can now offer global payouts to over 100 million workers using USDC, at an average cost savings of 20% compared to alternatives like PayPal or Wise. Stellar’s extensive network of on and off-ramps allows employees to easily convert funds from Airtm’s wallet to local currency.
Conclusion
Airtm and Bridge have created a platform that seamlessly moves funds across borders and currencies in seconds. Powered by the Stellar network, this solution offers low-cost and immediate global payments, expanding market reach for Airtm across the US, Europe, and countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. With over 400,000 access points, Stellar’s ecosystem ensures easy conversion from Airtm’s wallet to local currency, giving individuals quick access to their earnings.
"At Airtm, we are dedicated to empowering aid and gig platforms by providing innovative payment infrastructure that leverages the 'disconnected dollar.' Together with partners like Bridge and others, we've built an entirely new system that enables real-time stablecoin-based payouts to thousands of end users, helping them navigate volatile currencies and connect to the global economy."
"Although our world has fundamentally shifted from a collection of isolated, local economies to an interconnected global economy, mainstream solutions for currency exchange are cumbersome, expensive, slow, and out of reach for many. That’s why Bridge is so excited to partner with Airtm and other developers like it to enable cross-border payroll solutions for millions of workers."
