We’re excited to share more news about our recently announced Global Cash product, including a new video and additional product details.
What is Synapse Global Cash?1
Synapse Global Cash allows U.S. fintechs to expand their market reach and onboard individuals and businesses from 35+ countries to invest, hold and spend US dollars. Global Cash powers fintechs outside the U.S. to quickly and easily implement a first-of-its-kind financial solution that enables consumers and businesses from 35+ countries with access to U.S.-based account features.
Why Global Cash Now?
More than 1.7 billion adults worldwide are unbanked or underbanked. In addition, creator talent driving content in the new digital economy, such as social influencers, gig workers, content creators, and gamers, don’t have adequate access to receive payments across geographic markets. On the other side of the digital economy, social platforms like Airbnb® and TikTok®2 require location agnostic accounts and payment methods before they can compensate their gig workers and content creators, especially outside of the U.S. In addition, residents in countries experiencing high inflation rates and currency instability could greatly benefit from access to a more stable currency. And residents in negative interest rate countries need access to stable currencies where positive interest rates for assets on account are available. Finally, travelers for both business and pleasure, cross-border families, students studying abroad, and cross-border freelancers all need more cost effective ways to transact in the US and beyond.
Synapse Global Cash addresses all these needs with a U.S. dollar-denominated account, including debit cards, bank-to-bank transfers, virtual account numbers for direct debit and direct credit, bill-pay, ATM access, and domestic and international transfers.
We believe opening up this infrastructure to developers will act as a catalyst for creativity and level the playing field for U.S. and global citizens to have access to U.S.-based financial products and services.
Summary
Global Cash is our newest extension to Deposit Hub on the Synapse platform, along with Credit Hub3 and Crypto Hub4. We are excited to see how developers use it to bring innovative global products to market.
If you’re interested in learning more, please contact sales@synapsefi.com or go to synapsefi.com/global-cash.
Transcript of the Video “Intro to Global Cash”
Welcome
I'm Ellen Lawrence, a software engineer at Synapse. Welcome to our introduction to Synapse Global Cash video. Global Cash is a secure cash management account that allows fintechs to onboard individuals and businesses from over 35 countries to invest, hold, and spend US dollars. Popular features include debit cards, bank-to-bank transfers, virtual account numbers, bill pay, ATM access, and domestic and international transfers.
Video Overview
In this video, we will cover:
- The purpose for launching applications on global cash
- The role global cash fills for builders of digital accounts and payments offerings
- An overview of the product and how easy it is to set up, fund, and issue cards through our restful APIs
- The benefits of the product
Why We Built Global Cash
At Synapse, our mission is to ensure that everyone around the world has access to best-in-class financial products regardless of their net worth. We introduced global cash to help fintech innovators address five major challenges facing businesses and individuals around the globe.
- Social influencers, gamers, and other content creators outside of the U.S. don't have a means to get paid for their content from funds like the Tik-Tok Creator Fund, which requires a U.S. bank account number.
- Platforms like Airbnb and Tik-Tok need global low-cost payment solutions to simplify attracting and retaining creators.
- Residents and countries experiencing high inflation rates and currency instability benefit from access to a more stable currency.
- Residents in negative interest rate countries benefit from access to stable currencies where positive interest rates are readily available.
- Travelers for both business and pleasure, cross-border families, students studying abroad, and cross-border gig workers all need more cost-effective ways to transact in the U.S. and beyond.
Global cash enables your customers to open a U.S. dollar-based cash management account without having to be a U.S. resident. Deposits are held in U.S. dollars. Payments and transfers to businesses and individuals may be made within the U.S. and to entities in 35-plus countries.
You can also get a U.S. bank-issued debit card, ideal for anyone who wants to make purchases from any vendor in the Mastercard network. Mastercard is accepted in over 210 countries and with over 10.5 million retailers across the U.S.
And with Synapse, you can launch products based on our global cash solution in weeks, not months or years.
Barriers for Fintech Innovators
However, for fintech and embedded finance innovators to bring U.S. cash management accounts across the globe, they need to overcome their own barriers including:
- U.S. licensing and compliance barriers
- Speed to market, supporting rapid and iterative innovation,
- Developing innovative use cases for cross-border payments, investment, cash management, and transfers.
Synapse Breaks Barriers
With Synapse Global Cash, we take care of U.S. licensing and compliance for you. Synapse Brokerage LLC is your built-in Global Cash provider, and through our easy-to-use APIs, one can issue Global Cash products in as few as four API calls. This enables our customers to simply focus on the customer experience, as well as unique Global Cash solutions leveraging the advantages of a U.S.-based account.
Global Cash Demo
Let's take a look at how easy it is to set up a Global Cash account. We'll set up the account, then fund the account, and finally, issue a debit card on the account.
Let's take a moment to go through each of these steps one by one, beginning with setting up the account.
Setting Up the Account
I've loaded the Synapse public Postman collection environment here with my client ID and secret provided. I'm ready to create some API calls. First, let's look at the create user API call, which contains a pre-formatted request with the necessary documents to onboard a valid user.
In this example, we'll onboard a student in Brazil named Isabella Silva, who works as a freelancer, designing a website for a U.S. e-commerce company. We'll supply the know your customer (KYC) documents based on both U.S. and local compliance requirements. Now, all we need to do is click send, and a user will be generated within the Synapse sandbox.
We can see this request was successful, and we have all the user's information included in the user object. Now that our user is set up, the next step is to OAuth them. The OAuth via refresh token call is doing the majority of the work for you behind the scenes. Postman is pulling the refresh token from the user we just created as well as the appropriate headers. All we need to do here is click send.
Now that we've got an OAuth session, we're ready to set up the Global Cash account.
To create the Global Cash account, we'll select CMA or cash management account, give it a nickname, utilize the document ID we've provided before, and input the custody value of FDIC or Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and set the risk level at moderate. We can also generate a preview of this node agreement, display it to the user, get their consent, and then create the account. Let's click send.
Here we can see that the Global Cash account has been successfully created. Our balance is empty because we haven't transferred any money into our Global Cash account yet.
Now let's issue the account and routing number for the Global Cash user. In this case, we'll use the checking account class since our Global Cash user will be accepting ACH transfers for web design work completed for a U.S. e-commerce company. ACH or Automated Clearing House transfers are a common method used by U.S. businesses to pay employees and contractors. Let's click send.
We now have a Global Cash account and routing number, and with this number, we can easily accept payment from social media platforms, individuals, and businesses.
Fund the Account
Now that we have set up the user and account let's look at how we can fund the account. In this example, we'll fund the account via wire transfer. Let's set the direction to deposit, enter the amount and the currency, and click send. You can also fund the account via other methods such as ACH or internal transfer. In this example, one cent was used to cover the transaction cost, but many platforms can choose to cover this cost themselves. Now we can view our cash management account again and see that our balance has changed. We now have a U.S. dollar balance of $9.99.
Issue a Debit Card on the Account
Now that we've funded the account, let's issue a debit card on the account. We'll give it a nickname and set the account class to card. Let's hit send.
We've gotten a successful response. The status is currently inactive, so before we can use our debit card, we have to activate it. We'll use this call with status as active.
Now we can see our debit card has been successfully activated. The debit card enables you to easily spend your money. In this example, our freelancer who designs websites can easily buy software or stock photos online or withdraw money from ATMs.
Features & Benefits
Now let's turn to the key features and benefits of Synapse Global Cash. Synapse’s Global Cash solution provides:
- Global market reach to onboard customers from over 35 countries
- U.S. dollar-denominated accounts to invest, hold, spend, or accept payments in U.S. dollar
- Card issuance to offer a U.S. bank-issued debit card for purchases from any vendor in the Mastercard network
- U.S. bank-to-bank transfers enabling same-day or next-day ACH in and out of accounts
- International transfers and wires to send transfers to non-US accounts
- Limitless scale to grow your business without re-platforming
- Rapid speed to market via our modern API first platform, and with Synapse as your licensed broker-dealer, you can go live in weeks
Conclusion
Synapse Global Cash unlocks new growth opportunities in over 35 countries beyond the US. If you'd like to learn more, visit us at www.synapsefi.com/global-cash
I'm Ellen Lawrence and thank you for watching.
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1. Synapse Financial Technologies, Inc. is not a Bank.
Global cash management services provided by Synapse Brokerage LLC, a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC.
Deposit, Banking and Card services are provided by Synapse Financial Technologies, Inc.’s partner banks, Members FDIC.
2. Airbnb® is the registered trademark of Airbnb, Inc. TikTok® is the registered trademark of Bytedance Ltd. Synapse is not associated with, sponsored by or in any way affiliated with the respective owners of these marks.
3. Credit services are provided by Synapse Credit LLC, a licensed U.S. lender in designated States.
4. Crypto services are provided by Wyre Payments, Inc., a US Money Service Business. Synapse Brokerage LLC does not offer crypto services and no cryptocurrencies may be held in any account established through Synapse Brokerage, LLC. Cryptocurrencies are not stocks and your cryptocurrency investments are not protected by either FDIC or SIPC.
