AbbeyCross was founded to solve a problem that Mike and Adrian knew all too well from their years working inside large banks. They weren’t observers – they were practitioners who spent years grappling with the challenges of moving money into emerging markets. Legacy technology, fragmented regulations, operational complexity, and the lack of common market standards all combined to create a broken wholesale market. Payments were too costly, too slow, and too opaque for banks, payment companies, NGOs, and – most importantly – the clients and beneficiaries who relied on them.

But the problem went even deeper. Banks, payment companies, and NGOs were struggling to find and partner with the right payment providers – not just for today’s needs, but to build resilient, future-ready networks. The industry lacked an effective way to establish and orchestrate these critical relationships at scale. Inside the banks, Mike and Adrian did everything they could to address these issues. But it became clear that no single institution could fix the problem alone. The only way to solve it for the entire industry was to step outside it.

In 2021, they set out to do exactly that. Speaking with peers across the sector, they designed a new approach – one built on collaboration, transparency, and modern infrastructure. From these conversations, AbbeyCross was born: to create the wholesale market the industry needs, and to enable the seamless, reliable payment networks that will serve emerging markets today and into the future.

The name AbbeyCross is inspired by the Beatles’ iconic Abbey Road album. Mike, one of our founders, is a lifelong Beatles fan, and the album’s closing track, “Come Together,” perfectly captured the spirit of what AbbeyCross set out to achieve: uniting the wholesale market for cross-border payments in one collaborative venue.

Even our logo features a nod to the famous Abbey Road crosswalk – a symbol of connection and shared direction. At the same time, the word “cross” has a specific meaning in foreign exchange: it refers to converting through a major currency like USD to access an emerging market currency. This dual significance reflects our mission to bring the industry together while simplifying and improving the FX paths that underpin emerging market payments.