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Born in the Commonwealth, used around the globe: The Massachusetts-based fintechs making waves across the world

Massachusetts’ thriving fintech community isn’t just reshaping the way business and banking is done in the Commonwealth: increasingly, the innovations born here are having a far-reaching impact internationally. In this blog, we’ll be exploring examples of how “made-in-Massachusetts” fintech is making its mark around the world.

Flywire: When the sky’s the limit for cross-border payments

Headquartered in Boston, the Nasdaq-listed Flywire has developed a solution for payers frustrated by the time-consuming complexity and exorbitant cost of moving money across borders and into different currencies. Building on a network of banking relationships that criss-crosses the globe, the firm has facilitated seamless, secure and affordable payments in over 140 currencies for more than 3,700 global clients across the education, healthcare, travel & B2B sectors.

Over 1,200 employees (representing over 40 nationalities and 35 spoken languages!) based out of 12 offices around the world – including outposts in London, Valencia, Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney – service clients hailing from more than 240 countries and territories.

Flywire has doubled-down on its international footprint with the recently announced purchase of StudyLink, a leading provider of international student admissions, application and agent management software for universities throughout Australia.

Toast: Making restaurant payments a piece of cake

The cloud-based, all-in-one digital technology platform purpose-built for restaurants by the Boston Seaport-headquartered Toast encompasses everything, from point of sale and loyalty card programs to payroll management and online ordering infrastructure.

While most of the over 95,000 restaurants using its software and hardware solutions are stateside, Toast has been rapidly expanding internationally: earlier this year it announced it had set up shop in the UK, Ireland and Canada.

Toast has over 4,500 employees around the world. Following its purchase of xtraCHEF in 2021, it gained a vibrant presence in India; and today its offices in Chennai and Bangalore host employees in engineering, IT, administration and other roles.

Circle: Using web3 to square the payments

The Boston-based Circle is a global financial technology firm that ambitiously aims to promote economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve financial stability. How? By transforming the way money moves through the development of new digital currencies, notably the USD Coin (USDC). This is a regulated, fully-backed digital dollar that is available 24/7, moves at internet speed and is always redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars. Because USDC runs on global blockchains (which have low barriers to entry and minimal transaction costs) it’s playing a growing role in facilitating cross-border payments and remittances worldwide.

With offices dotted across the world (including in Dublin, London, Hong Kong and Taipei), Circle’s global reach is amplified by key strategic partnerships. For example, it recently announced a collaboration with BitoGroup (Taiwan’s cryptocurrency market leader) and Taiwan FamilyMart (a major convenience store chain), to enable loyalty points to be converted into digital currencies like USDC. And, in Latin America and the Caribbean, Circle is now working with Island Pay (one of the region’s leading digital currency firms) to provide improved access to money through CiNKO, Island Pay’s new digital wallet.

Discover the next generation of global leaders

Checkout our recently released KPMG report, highlighting the state of the Massachusetts fintech ecosystem and its strengths, opportunities and impact – both at home and abroad. This is an indispensable guide to our community, its future and the exciting ways in which you can become involved. Read the full report here or catch up on the highlights in our executive summary here. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn and X to keep updated about all things Mass Fintech Hub.