Qolo
The Swift Cross-border Payments Enabler

The payments landscape has seen tremendous advancement in recent years, but cross-border payment has remained distant to innovation. On the one hand, there are new-age fintech companies offering point solutions addressing specific aspects of end-to-end payments. On the other are large payment companies that perform an intricate orchestration of diverse platforms, tools, and support teams which demand integration and coordination across a variety of technologies and organizations. Florida-based Qolo (pronounced ko-lo) is taking the bull by the horns in the complex global payments landscape by providing innovative payment solutions. The company is on a mission to simplify B2B cross-border payments.

Prior to founding Qolo, the company’s four principals experienced similar, arduous journeys trying to find apt payment solutions as well as experienced resources to manage complex transactions. Mechanisms like traditional wire-based transfers are painfully slow, manual, and error-prone. Speed and simplicity can be found in the likes of credit card transactions, but the expense is too high in much of the B2B payments world. When the founders got down to the brass tacks to develop the platform, their idea was to build a hybrid solution that combines the best of all worlds—speed, simplicity, cost—topped with their own secret sauce.

The team’s efforts fructified with SmartWire, a service enabling straight-through processing of complex overseas payments by attaching a unique identity band to every wire transaction generated in a bank, thus enabling near real-time payment clearance. Another innovation, SmartFX, is a real-time routing mechanism that automatically finds the lowest-cost foreign exchange (FX) path and processes the payment accordingly. Through SmartFX, Qolo gives its clients access to dramatically lower FX costs.

Focusing on both the payables and the supply chain sides of the overseas payments, we work with clients to untangle the knotty processes and facilitate the free flow of payments

While catering to large corporations, Qolo understands clients’ workflow and customizes the processes to address their pain points. “Focusing on both the payables and the supply chain sides of the overseas payments, we work with clients to untangle the knotty processes and facilitate the free flow of payments,” says Patricia Montesi, Founder and CEO of Qolo.

A case in point, Qolo is deploying a cross border, end-to-end solution for a shipping and logistics client. The aim is to reduce their order-to-delivery time by as much as a week, and reduce the cost and manual processes associated with international payments. Qolo is also aiding the client’s independent truck drivers by providing options to get paid weeks early. Through a mobile app powered by Qolo which helps the client track the shipment and payments throughout, as soon as the shipment is delivered, driver payment can be released. Early payment aids in finding quality drivers and lowering attrition, both of which add to the bottom line.

Eying expansion, Qolo plans to cater to companies from different verticals, including factoring, trade, finance, and manufacturing, as well as offering bundled solutions catering to the gig and earned wage industries.