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CompanyProfile

Risk-free, localized

cross-border

ecommerce

am Ranieri, Reach chief executive officer, ISO/MLS contact:
founded the company in an effort to transform
the cross-border shopping experience. "FX has Matthew Cannon
S been my game from the beginning, and as far
back as 2010, I saw an opportunity to improve ecommerce Chief Sales Officer, Reach
foreign exchange rates." mcannon@withreach.com

The ultimate aim was to build a cross-border ecommerce 415-837-3421
platform that would enable consumers to shop globally in
home currencies at guaranteed rates, Ranieri stated. For www.withreach.com
example, a U.S. shopper visiting a UK site would want to
shop in U.S. dollars, not British pounds, and would not
want to see an assortment of cross-border fees on their
credit card statement, he noted. And while we do have to show a disclaimer, we make our
brand minimally visible, like a 'powered by' that's embed-
Ranieri felt there must be a way for shoppers to transact ded in the merchant's site to facilitate the transaction."
online in local currencies and not get hit with extra cross-
border fees when packages reached their doors. From that Fraud can be a problem when transacting internationally,
basic premise, the company resolved to figure out how to Ranieri pointed out, adding that Reach is 100 percent re-
localize an ecommerce site from a currency perspective, sponsible for fraud as the merchant of record. "U.S. mer-
which involved a whole set of complementary services, chants don't always understand the nuances that are hap-
with the biggest one being processing, pening in Brazil, India and other markets, so handling
100 percent of fraud is another value we've added," he
Local currency, zero risk said. "Our internal team mitigates fraud on behalf of mer-
"We sought to remove friction and localize transactions," chants so the merchant literally goes global with one in-
Ranieri said, adding that the answer may have been sim- tegration and zero liability while saving interchange fees.
ple but the build required him to flip the processing script. We call this a 'win win win.'"
"We had to set up local entities to meet consumers where Transparent pricing, service
they shop, which is the opposite approach from tradition-
al payment providers that process payments where the Ranieri went on to say Reach prides itself on transpar-
merchant is," he noted. "We process the payment where ency by "exposing those dirty little secrets the banks have
the shopper is, with a local entity and local acquiring been using for years," and making everyone in the chain,
channel in Canada, the UK, EU, Australia, plus a Partner from shoppers to merchants, aware of fees. Reach part-
Network in emerging markets in Latin America." ners, which include payment service providers, acquir-
ers and ecommerce shopping carts, can download the
Reach partnered with banks and processing networks, Reach app or directly integrate it into their platforms. The
creating a platform with a single API that enables a mer- technology combines local pricing, local acquiring, fraud
chant to access local acquiring and currencies in numer- mitigation and multiple payment methods, giving Reach
ous countries. To achieve this, Ranieri learned, Reach had channel partners a competitive advantage, he stated.
to become the merchant of record model in foreign juris-
dictions. Today, Reach offers a suite of pay-as-you-go payment
products designed to enable shoppers to pay in their pre-
"In early days, the merchant of record model involved a ferred currencies. Robust fraud management, continually
clunky redirect, and merchants lost their brand and ana- updated in response to emerging threats, is also includ-
lytics," Ranieri said. "We focused on building the actual ed, Ranieri noted. The company's partners and shoppers
APIs, so we're actually integrated on the merchant site, have access to a global network with wholesale FX rates
enabling them to retain their brand and analytics. and local processing in more than 100 currencies, and
merchants can dynamically display local currency based
on their customers' locations, he added.

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