Peter De Caluwe - Thunes - Paris Fintech Forum

Why It Matters

Thunes’ low‑cost, instant cross‑border payment infrastructure lowers friction for businesses in emerging markets, potentially reshaping global trade finance and intensifying competition with legacy banking networks.

Key Takeaways

• Thunes offers instant cross‑border payments with upfront cost transparency.
• Platform connects businesses to 130+ countries via mobile wallets and banks.
• New Beijing office expands reach into China’s massive supply‑chain market.
• Compliance‑as‑a‑service cuts cross‑border verification costs by 60‑70% significantly.
• Thunes targets merchants, SMEs, and global online retailers for payouts.

Summary

Peter De Caluwe, co‑founder of Singapore‑based Thunes, spoke at the Paris Fintech Forum about the firm’s mission to simplify cross‑border payments for businesses operating in emerging markets. He outlined Thunes’ three‑pronged model: a global payment network that moves funds instantly to 130+ countries with transparent fees, a collection service for online retailers targeting consumers in regions such as Pakistan and Ghana, and a compliance‑as‑a‑service layer that automates regulatory checks.

The platform positions itself as a “big correspondent bank” without being a bank, offering a single API that lets corporates, SMEs, and gig‑economy platforms disburse payroll, supplier invoices, or payouts with real‑time confirmation of arrival. Thunes recently secured a license to collect payments, began serving tier‑one global gaming and software firms, and announced a new Beijing office, unlocking China’s massive trade corridors with Southeast Asia and Africa.

De Caluwe highlighted that Thunes’ compliance engine has reduced verification costs by 60‑70% for partner banks and fintechs, leveraging machine‑learning to replace labor‑intensive manual checks. He also emphasized the company’s ambition to compete with legacy messaging systems like SWIFT by providing its own messaging protocol, thereby democratizing access to low‑cost, instant money movement.

If Thunes can scale its network and attract more customers, the cost structure of international payments could shift dramatically, pressuring traditional banks and legacy providers while empowering merchants and suppliers in high‑growth emerging economies to operate with greater cash‑flow certainty.

Original Description

At the Paris Fintech Forum, we caught up with Peter De Caluwe, CEO at Thunes, to discover the organisation’s core functions and operations.

Thunes is a B2B global payments network facilitating frictionless cross-border transactions, offering secure, efficient, and cost-effective solutions for businesses and individuals to send and receive funds worldwide, bridging diverse payment systems and ensuring seamless financial connectivity.

“Today the company is mainly focused as a big correspondent bank … We tell you upfront how much it costs, we do the money movement instantly and we also confirm when the money has arrived at the destination.”

“The biggest cost globally, we predict, is coming from compliance. All the banks are employing massive amounts of people in the compliance departments. Meaning that automating this, applying machine learning to it, which is something that we have done … We drastically reduced the compliance cost by 60-70%.”