PingPong is a leading global fintech founded in New York in 2015 and headquartered in Hangzhou, China, with a singular vision: to provide seamless cross-border payment services to e-commerce and enterprise clients.
Today, it has 40 offices globally and processes a cumulative total of $350 billion in payment value.
With ambitious plans to deliver modern UK payment services to an expanding and diverse customer base, PingPong received its Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from the FCA in 2023.
This provided the foundations to build its UK business, serving existing ecommerce customers transacting in the UK, and win new business from UK-based firms.
To achieve that vision, PingPong needed more than basic account provision.
It required a technology-focused banking partner that could support complex payment processing, reliable scheme connectivity and scalable customer account management, without slowing the business down as volumes increased.
“We selected ClearBank because of its market reputation for reliability, innovative technology and API-led philosophy and its commitment to the highest standards for regulatory compliance. The ClearBank engagement was highly consultative, and they really understood the industry.
We didn’t have all the answers, but it was clear they had a lot of experience working with firms like us that are EMIs wanting to deliver a bank-level experience to our end customers.”
explains Alex Young, Head of FI Partnerships, Europe and Americas at PingPong.
Virtual accounts supporting operational flexibility and efficiency
UK EMIs have many potential partners for accounts and payment services.
ClearBank stood out because it combined modern banking infrastructure with a track record of supporting fintechs at every stage of their journey.
PingPong also needed an efficient model for account setup and management, which ClearBank delivers through its Virtual GBP accounts.
This allows PingPong to open millions of accounts under its brand and sort code, providing each customer with its own addressable vIBAN (virtual International Bank Account Number), with no limit on the number of logic layers it can create within its ledger.
This structure enables PingPong to support many customers through one or a small number of real accounts, giving the company clear visibility of where funds are held for each customer while reducing the cost and complexity of managing individual real accounts for all of them.
“What agency banking gives us is a unique sort code for our UK entity, IBANs for our customers, each with a named account and, as a result, they really feel as though they’re dealing with an institution.
The flexibility of the agency bank infrastructure that ClearBank brings allows us to manage our customer expectations and deliver the solutions they need,”
Young explains.
Ensuring payment performance, visibility and certainty
These accounts are complemented with access to the UK’s payment schemes Faster Payment System (FPS), CHAPS and Bacs.
That connectivity supports a business model built around real-time payments and fund reconciliation, giving customers the certainty they need to make informed business decisions.
“We have a diverse customer base, but they all need one thing – and CFOs in larger enterprise customers in particular – which is secure, predictable payments. The API-based services that ClearBank delivers to PingPong allow our customers to make instant decisions.
The speed of reconciliation and having that information as real-time as possible is key to our business model and ensuring we deliver UK payments to our customers around the globe.”
Young explains.
By accessing UK payment schemes through ClearBank, PingPong can offer customers a range of payment options without taking on the operational cost and complexity of becoming a direct participant.
It also avoids the ongoing capital investment required to maintain those connections, deliver the uptime customers expect, and prepare for scheme updates.
ClearBank is also providing PingPong with a Confirmation of Payee (CoP) service for FPS, which checks payees’ details in real time before a payment is made.
As an overlay service that runs separately from the UK payment schemes, CoP adds another layer of trust by helping reduce the risk of fraud and misdirected payments.
“Risk and compliance are at the heart of everything we do. So having that visibility and connectivity with Confirmation of Payee really adds an important layer of security, which is important to us. And it means we’re providing an end-to-end payment solution in the UK,”
Young concludes.
For global merchants, slow settlement and fragmented payment infrastructure can create uncertainty at the exact moment visibility matters most.
PingPong has built its business around solving that challenge, and in the UK, ClearBank’s Agency Banking solution is helping it deliver faster, more secure and more scalable payment services to customers around the world.
Featured image by ClearBank.
