FSC platforms and networks: Syncada from Visa
by Kylene Casanova
Visa Inc. and U.S. Bancorp set up Syncada in July 2009 – a joint venture providing a business-to-business (B2B) network for corporations and governments to process and track invoices, make and receive payments around the world, and have payables or receivables financed through local and global financial institutions. Syncada combines Visa's experience in delivering commercial payment services to financial institutions and managing a multi-bank network, with U.S. Bank's PowerTrack, an automated B2B e-invoicing, payment processing and trade finance network. Headquartered in Minneapolis Syncarda has facilities in Chicago, Memphis, Toronto, Brussels, Mumbai, Pune, and Singapore, and employs approximately 630 people worldwide.
In October 2010, Commerce Bank joined the Syncada network. There are now four sponsor bank members of the Syncada network: U.S. Bank, Elavon (based in Europe), Citi, and Commerce Bank.
The Syncada network automates the payable and receivable processes for hundreds of buyers and more than ten thousand unique suppliers world-wide. The main features of Syncada’s operation in 2011 were:
- buyer and supplier enterprises (participants) processed and paid 23.7 million network transactions (invoices) valued at USD 21.4 billions. These transactions were accompanied by more than 78 million supporting documents, which included 58 million small parcel waybills
- 19.6 million network transactions (82%) were delivered to Syncada electronically while the remaining 4.4 million (18%) were delivered as paper invoices to one of Syncada's operation centres for conversion to electronic data
- network participants used Syncada to make payments into 47 countries
- Syncada routinely makes payments in the following currencies: CAD, CZK, DKK, EUR, GBP, HKD, HUF, NOK, PLN, SGD, SEK, CHF, USD
- supported customer service interactions with participants in 18 languages.
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