Why we built Storspay in both directions

When we launched Storspay, the pitch was simple: pay your team across the world like you pay your team across the hall. Same-day, one fee, no wire desk. It worked, and the customers who signed up were the ones we expected — agencies with developers in Lagos, tour operators with guides in Arusha, NGOs with field staff in Ouagadougou.

What we did not expect was the second call. Almost every one of them had money going the other way too. The agency invoiced a Nigerian bank. The tour operator collected deposits from a Kenyan partner. The exporter in Toronto had distributors in Abidjan who paid — slowly, expensively — by inbound wire, with a spread their bank chose and fees at three stops. "You get the money there," they said. "Can you get it back?"

Why it is harder than it sounds

Paying out is a licensed activity in one country. Getting paid is a licensed activity in the other — collecting local currency from a local payer requires local account details, local reconciliation, and the same "completed means confirmed" discipline in reverse. It also means solving the caps problem backwards: a US$10,000 invoice paid by mobile money in Senegal is dozens of transfers, and the customer must never see that complexity.

It took most of a year: licensed collection partners in each corridor, payment requests that split themselves under caps, same-day USD credit, and — because the money now had somewhere to sit — Storspay Accounts with USD, GBP and EUR details, and Cards to spend from them.

What it changed

A one-way payout product is a cost line. A two-way product is a treasury: the balance you were paid into is the balance you pay from, in the same currency, at the same 2%, with the same statement. Exporters bring revenue home without a wire. Platforms collect from sellers and pay them from one account. Diaspora businesses fund a delegation and are repaid the same way.

What did not change

The rules we started with. The mid-market rate, always shown. The fee, always separate. "Completed" only when the recipient's bank says so. B2B only, verification required. No infrastructure partner names in the product, because you are paying with Storspay, and that has to mean something.

If you have money going both ways, this page shows how the round trip works. And if you are still on wires in either direction, the calculator will tell you what it is costing.

Who this is for — and who it is not for

Storspay is for businesses, and a sole trader counts as one. If you are a freelancer or sole proprietor trading in your own name, you open a business account of the sole-trader type. You can be paid by companies abroad, and you can pay other businesses on Storspay — including other sole traders — for work they have done for you.

What Storspay is not is a personal money-transfer service. We do not open personal accounts, and every payment has to be a business transaction: an invoice, a contract, work delivered. Money to family, gifts and personal transfers are not what this is, and we would rather say so now than at verification.