Thunes

Thunes

Thunes was formed in 2016 when CEO Peter De Caluwe, formerly of Ogone and Ingenico ePayments, led the separation of TransferTo's B2B payments business into an independent Singapore-headquartered entity. The carve-out was backed by private equity sponsors, including Helios Investment Partners, which invested $60 million in 2019. The firm operates as a regulated payments institution, maintaining licenses across multiple jurisdictions and building an inter-operable network of digital wallets, banks, and cash payout providers in emerging and developed markets. Its founding thesis is that the fragmented rails powering cross-border transfers — particularly into mobile wallets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America — can be unified under one integration layer for enterprise senders (per the firm, 2023). The firm connects payment service providers to a network of 3 billion mobile wallets and 4 billion bank accounts globally. Its API enables real-time payouts to bank accounts, cards, and mobile wallets in over 130 countries and 80 currencies. Thunes occupies a distinct niche from consumer-facing remittance apps: its customers are financial institutions, digital platforms (gaming, e-commerce, ride-hailing), and money transfer operators that embed its rails. Named network members include PayPal, Uber, Deliveroo, and Revolut. The firm operates a direct clearing model in many corridors, owning local licensing and settlement agreements rather than routing through pooled correspondent accounts — a structural advantage for speed and cost in thin-corridor payments. From 2019 to 2021, Thunes processed a reported $6 billion in volume, covering approximately 300 million end-users (per the firm). It maintains offices in London, Paris, Miami, Dubai, Nairobi, and São Paulo, reflecting a geographic focus spanning the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America alongside its Asian base. In 2022, the firm acquired Tilia LLC, a U.S.-regulated money transmitter, extending its compliance footprint into the American market. Thunes also operates Thunes Collections, a subsidiary enabling merchants to accept local payment methods across emerging markets. CEO De Caluwe has publicly stated ambitions for a U.S. listing, though no formal S-1 filing has occurred as of late 2024 (per Reuters, May 2023). Thunes is structurally distinct because it behaves less like a payments processor and more like a utility-layer aggregator — one integration gives a sender access to a patchwork of local payout endpoints that would otherwise require dozens of bilateral contracts. Its direct membership in schemes and wallet partnerships — notably with M-Pesa, GCash, and PayPal — positions it as what De Caluwe calls 'a network of networks.' This architecture competes indirectly with SWIFT, by side-stepping correspondent banking entirely for many payment types, and distinguishes Thunes from API orchestrators that rely on multiple underlying processor hops.