Papaya Payments: The Compliance Advantage

From Papaya’s earliest days, compliance has been our top priority.

In every country we serve, we work with local partners to make sure we’re always on top of legal changes in tax or labor laws. And it’s a good thing, too. The law changes often, especially when you cover 160 countries.

But we wanted to be extra sure your payroll was always in local compliance – so we added an automated compliance engine to our global payroll platform. It’s powered by AI and gives us another layer of protection.

We applied the same priority for local compliance when we started creating the world’s first payments service dedicated to payroll payments.

Our first move was to get licensed to hold and move funds across global borders. We didn’t just get one license. We got five of them, covering every major market in the world.

Being licensed means we meet all government regulations in making payments across the globe. But It’s more than just getting the numbers rights. There are regulations on how to operate as a payroll provider – how we protect your money and how transparent about the transfers we are expected to be – that give you unprecedented control of your operations.

For us, being strictly regulated means filing detailed reports to five different regulatory bodies on a regular basis. For you, it means peace of mind. You can rest assured that your payroll and payments meet the strictest requirements in every local jurisdiction.

A Global Payments Network That Delivers

Acquiring licenses was the Papaya’s first step, but the axis of our compliance in payments rests on at least two additional pillars.

The first is our global payments network. We partnered with the biggest banks in the world to ensure we have global reach in payment delivery. These are the kind of banks that uphold – and demand – the highest standards.

The second is our automated payroll portal, embedded in our global payroll platform. This is where all the action happens, from daily “dry run” simulations of the payment process so you know exactly how much to fund your payments accounts, to self-service currency control, to complete visibility for all your money transfers across the globe – all through a single panel.

Compliance – Here’s What’s in it For You

Every global payroll must, at the very least, be accurate, on time, and locally compliant. If payroll is late or incorrect, employees could lose trust in their employer. If payroll is not tax compliant, the company can face heavy fines and a loss of reputation in that location. 

For Papaya, being compliant is not just about avoiding government sanctions. It’s about providing our clients with the comfort of knowing that their payroll is in the hands of experts, not some third-party hired by the payroll company to finish the job because the payroll company couldn’t do it.

Under the category of compliance, Papaya offers a number of operational benefits:

1. Client Money Accounts (CMA)

Also known as digital wallets, CMAs provide some of the most far-reaching benefits. The concept behind CMAs is simple – your money stays in your account, separate from all other accounts, including our own. We do not bundle payments from various clients into one large payment. We keep all funds separated.

This allows you to use your digital wallet as another bank account. You can open wallets in any number of currencies, but the total always remains under your name. You also receive detailed reports of all your financial activity, so there are no suspicions of fraud. You always have access to your funds, even if something happens to Papaya Global.

Our self-service portal always lets you know exactly how much money you need to fund and when the money needs to be delivered – usually 7-10 days later than other payment providers. This gives you maximum flexibility for your working capital.

2. Streamlined Know Your Customer (KYC)

Banks have to check all cross-border transfers to ensure that the money is not being used for money laundering, funding illegal operations or terrorist activity, or being delivered to countries under sanction.

The process is called Know Your Customers. It can cause of delays for payments reaching their destinations. In some cases, banks might receive funds but not release them to their rightful recipients until they compete the KYC process.

Different countries demand different forms to complete their checks. Papaya’s payments portal keeps track of all the forms, demanding the minimum number of forms for each location and adds form requests incrementally as the need arises.

This allows you to pass through the KYC process in the quickest possible time – in one week or less – and confirmed through a “penny test” (sending a small payment through the system to ensure that the payment arrives at the prescribed time.)

3. Funding in 7 Currencies, Payments in over 100

Papaya’s commitment to compliance makes it easy to fund a multi-entity workforce. You can use any of the major currencies – GBP, EUR, USD, AUD, CAD, HKD, or SGD – to send money to your account. You can keep it all in one wallet or split it to different wallets with different currencies. It all stays in the name of your company.

The payments are delivered in your employee’s local currency. Our currency management offering currently supports more than 100 currencies for payments. The wallets also make it easy to move from one currency to another. So if your workforce changes – if you open a new region or reduce your workforce in another – and find you need more USD and less GBP, the funds move seamlessly from one wallet to another. 

It’s Time for KYV – Know Your Vendor

When it comes to payroll payments, many businesses don’t know much about the companies that are delivering their payments. They have little visibility into the payment process and even less control over when and where the payments land.

That’s because global payroll companies don’t actually handle the payroll payments on their own. When they say they can handle the delivery, what they mean is that they can outsource the delivery to payment service provider.

But that leaves clients at the mercy of payment companies they didn’t choose. And that means compliance may be a challenge.

If you don’t know the compliance standards are for the company delivering your payroll payments, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Take time to get to know your vendor so you can decide if they meet your standards or not.

Raise Your Standards with Papaya Global

It’s a simple formula. Compliance = Knowledge and Expertise. We have the global knowledge you need to process payroll compliantly across the globe. We also have the expertise to put our knowledge to work for you.

We are the only global payroll company with embedded payments, which means you can handle the entire process through a single platform. You can track your payroll end to end – from the earliest point in the payroll process all the way through payments landing in your employee’s bank accounts.

The process is designed to maximize your working capital. Instead of locking up your funds for weeks before payday and requiring a 30% deposit to cover all the extra fees the payments gather on route to your employees, Papaya’s automated system lets you fund your account much later in the cycle and without a significant deposit.

It’s all part of our emphasis on compliance. Because you deserve the best.

Learn how we can transform your payroll and payments, and save you time and resources. Get a demo today.