Consider the peculiar life of an international sale. A customer clicks, a parcel travels, and the seller waits for money that must negotiate a different set of borders. The shop may be digital; the payment still has geography. Someone must collect it, convert it, check it and deliver it. Every intermediary has an opportunity to make the journey more expensive.
PingPong found its opening in that gap. Founded in 2015, with a U.S. company in New York and headquarters established in Hangzhou, it offered cross-border sellers a proposition they could understand without a finance degree: fees capped at 1%. A rather small number became the front door to a much larger business.
- Start with the seller: make overseas collections cheaper and easier.
- Build the network: add local licences, payment connections and banking partners.
- Enter the workflow: put payouts and FX inside marketplaces and business software.
01 / The arithmetic of a smaller fee
Robert Chen and co-founder Ning Wang described merchants struggling with costly currency exchange and slow payments. The original problem was wonderfully unglamorous: sellers had already done the difficult work of winning a customer, yet collecting the proceeds still ate into their earnings.
The appeal becomes obvious with a pencil. On an illustrative $10,000 payment, a 3% fee costs $300; a 1% fee costs $100. The $200 difference can buy stock or pay for advertising. This is hypothetical arithmetic, rather than a comparison of today’s providers. But it explains why a precise price proposition travels further than a speech about financial innovation.
Two percentage points, real dollars.
Cheaper collection did not replenish inventory sooner by itself. PingPong introduced Lightyear, an early-payment solution, in 2017. Its history later records supplier payments, structured FX tools called Hedging X and a B2B solution called Flowmore. The sequence suggests a useful habit: follow what the customer needs to do after the first problem is solved.
02 / The expensive part is permission
A payment app is easy to admire. A regulatory licence is harder to photograph. Yet the latter is central to PingPong’s story. It obtained a European payment licence in Luxembourg in 2017, upgraded to electronic-money-institution status in 2020, and added UK, Singapore and Australian licensing milestones in 2023. An Indonesian payment-service-provider licence followed in 2024.
This changes how one should assess the company. An API provides a convenient way for another business’s software to request a payment. The software still needs a lawful, dependable route for moving the funds. PingPong’s 2025 expansion announcement described direct connections to Europe’s SEPA and the UK’s Faster Payments System, alongside Swift messaging integration.
“Compliance is not friction, but instead, a competitive advantage.”DAVID MESSENGER / COMPANY BLOG, AUGUST 2025
Messenger, appointed CEO of Global Businesses in 2023, represents the enterprise direction of the business. His argument is practical: regulatory work belongs inside the customer experience. A fast interface cannot compensate for a transfer that requires an unexpected investigation. The attractive button depends on the dull machinery working.
03 / Follow the money past the checkout
Today, PingPong’s offering spans business accounts, local collections, global payouts, checkout, cards and foreign exchange. A seller can receive funds, hold a currency balance and pay a supplier. A software platform can integrate those capabilities into its own service. FX tools include live conversion, limit orders and rate protection where available.
- 01CollectReceive overseas sales
- 02HoldKeep a currency balance
- 03ConvertExchange when needed
- 04PaySettle the supplier bill
Best Buy Canada supplies a concrete example. In March 2025 it selected PingPong as its marketplace’s first cross-border payment service provider of record, using the API to facilitate international seller payouts. The customer here is a marketplace with sellers to pay, rather than merely a merchant looking for a cheaper withdrawal.
PingPong earns through payment fees and FX margins. Its published agreements describe charges that vary by transaction and jurisdiction; negotiated terms can apply. The old 1% pitch should therefore stay in its historical frame. Buyers should compare the funds delivered after conversion and settlement, rather than treating one advertised percentage as the entire bill.
Its competitive neighbourhood includes Payoneer and WorldFirst for seller collections, and Airwallex, Wise Business and banks for overlapping international money tasks. The distinction worth examining is the combination of seller experience, local permissions and embedded enterprise services. Which provider fits depends on the actual payment journey.
04 / A booking has two clocks
Travel makes that journey especially awkward. A customer books at one exchange rate; the agency settles later, potentially at another. In June 2026, PingPong and Sabre announced a partnership to put FX optimization inside Sabre Mosaic Marketplace. Access to rates at booking brings a financial decision closer to the moment that creates the exposure.
Other expansions reveal similar attention to specific jobs. InvestXB, launched in Luxembourg in 2025, serves alternative investment managers and administrators operating investment vehicles. A September 2025 agreement with CIMB pairs PingPong’s international network with banking capabilities, beginning with Malaysia and planned ASEAN rollouts. Each setting has its own paperwork and payment habits.
Company-reported annualized transaction volume.
AS OF 30 JUN 2026 / MONEY MOVED, NOT REVENUE05 / Copy the question before the network
The portable lesson is to start with an expensive nuisance customers can measure, then examine the surrounding work. For a buyer, map one invoice from receipt to reconciliation. Check the corridor, beneficiary currency, documentation, delivery time and total cost. A large coverage number cannot answer those questions for a particular transaction.
There is a second lesson for founders in this progression. Price makes the first conversation easy; adjacent services make the relationship useful. The seller who needs collection today may need supplier settlement tomorrow. Building around that sequence is a more disciplined expansion plan than adding features simply because competitors advertise them. It keeps the product attached to a job someone already has to finish before the business can grow.
An embedded integration earns its keep when payment volume and operational complexity justify the effort. A business making occasional transfers may need a simpler arrangement; an unsupported corridor cannot be wished into existence. PingPong’s story is compelling because the original promise was so modest: let the seller keep more. Keeping that promise across more kinds of business requires an increasingly elaborate backstage.