Cross-border business payments · South Africa launch
Cross-border business payments, routed and settled on schedule.
One platform for the businesses and PSPs moving serious money — ten currencies, eight rails at exit, and reconciliation you can set your watch by. Phase 1 in build.
- 8
- rails at exit — Phase 1 target
- 10
- currencies
- 6
- SADC corridors + SWIFT
- 08:00
- SAST · T+1 reconciliation — Phase 1 target
Every rail. One integration.
8 rails at exit — Phase 1 target
Cross-border business payments run across multiple rails, each with its own settlement window, value ceiling, and use case. Orchura carries all of them behind a single integration point, so the instrument a payment needs is always available — without parallel vendor relationships or partial coverage.
Pay-out
PayShap
Real-time push to any PayShap-enabled account.
Settlement is immediate, around the clock. Value ceiling: R50,000 per transaction — the right instrument for supplier disbursements, contractor payments, and time-sensitive low-value transfers.
RTC — Real-Time Clearing
Real-time clearing for higher-value business transfers.
Designed for the R50,000–R5,000,000 range. Funds move within seconds, with intraday finality. The instrument of choice for invoice settlement, inter-company transfers, and any payment where speed and value both matter.
EFT — Electronic Funds Transfer
T+1 batch settlement at the lowest per-transaction cost.
Where timing is flexible and volume is high, EFT delivers. Processed in overnight batch cycles, with T+1 credit to the beneficiary. Structured for payroll runs, recurring supplier payments, and large-volume disbursement programmes.
TCIB — Transactions Cleared on an Immediate Basis
ZAR-denominated cross-border transfers into six SADC corridors.
A single rail reaching Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Botswana in ZAR — without foreign exchange conversion at the border. Orchura captures Travel Rule data on every TCIB transfer as required.
SWIFT outbound
International wire settlement in USD, EUR, and GBP.
For transfers beyond the SADC footprint, SWIFT carries the instruction to the correspondent network. Orchura originates SWIFT outbound in three currencies, with Travel Rule data captured on every transfer.
≤ R50,000 RTC
R50,000–R5,000,000 EFT
above · T+1
Pay-in
PayShap Request-to-Pay
Initiated collection via PayShap's request-to-pay scheme.
Orchura issues the collection request; the payer authorises in their own banking environment. Funds settle in real time on confirmation — a cleaner collection path than push-to-pay for receivables workflows.
DebiCheck — Mandated Collections
Authenticated debit orders under the DebiCheck mandate scheme.
Each mandate is confirmed by the payer's bank before the first collection. Subsequent collections run against the authenticated mandate, reducing disputes and returns on recurring receivables.
SWIFT inbound
Receiving USD, EUR, and GBP from the correspondent network.
Inbound international wires arrive against per-customer virtual accounts in each currency. Orchura reconciles receipts against expected payment instructions automatically.
Routing without guesswork
Every payment instruction is assessed against four variables — amount, currency, destination, and priority — before a rail is selected. Where multiple rails qualify, the lowest-cost or fastest option is chosen in accordance with the instruction's priority setting. Each rail is monitored continuously, with per-rail circuit breakers that detect degraded performance and route around it automatically. If a rail becomes unavailable, the instruction moves to the next eligible rail without operator intervention. The routing logic is part of the platform's core operations, not a configuration exercise for each customer.
How money moves
Five stages, visible end to end. The same lifecycle on every rail. Nothing moves to the next stage without the previous one completing.
- Instructed The payment instruction is received and validated. Amount, currency, beneficiary details, and settlement priority are confirmed against the account's authorisation rules.
- Screened & quoted Sanctions and PEP screening runs against every instruction before any funds are committed. Where a conversion is involved, the FX rate is quoted and locked — the quote holds for 30 seconds.
- Routed Rail selection runs against amount, currency, destination, and priority. Rail health is assessed at the moment of selection; if the preferred rail is degraded, the next eligible rail receives the instruction.
- Settled Active stage Settlement proceeds on the rail's own window. Real-time rails settle within seconds; EFT batch settles the following business day; TCIB and SWIFT settle per their correspondent windows.
- Reconciled Each morning, a three-way reconciliation matches the ledger against the bank statement, and optionally the customer's own records. Nothing unmatched ages silently.
01 Instructed
The payment instruction is received and validated. Amount, currency, beneficiary details, and settlement priority are confirmed against the account's authorisation rules.
02 Screened & quoted
Sanctions and PEP screening runs against every instruction before any funds are committed. Where a conversion is involved, the FX rate is quoted and locked — the quote holds for 30 seconds.
03 Routed
Rail selection runs against amount, currency, destination, and priority. Rail health is assessed at the moment of selection; if the preferred rail is degraded, the next eligible rail receives the instruction.
04 Settled
Settlement proceeds on the rail's own window. Real-time rails settle within seconds; EFT batch settles the following business day; TCIB and SWIFT settle per their correspondent windows.
05 Reconciled
Each morning, a three-way reconciliation matches the ledger against the bank statement, and optionally the customer's own records. Nothing unmatched ages silently.
Worked example — USD balance, ZAR beneficiary, real-time priority.
A platform holds a USD balance and instructs a ZAR payout to a domestic beneficiary. At stage 2, the USD/ZAR rate is quoted and locked for a 30-second confirmation window. On confirmation, the instruction advances to stage 3: because the ZAR instruction falls below R50,000 and carries real-time priority, PayShap is selected. Settlement completes within seconds. The instruction appears in the morning reconciliation statement matched against the bank's confirmation record.
This example is illustrative. Settlement timing on live instructions reflects each rail's published windows.
Ten currencies. One FX engine.
Quote, lock, execute — positions netted and hedged at bank treasury level daily.
ZARUSDEURGBPNGNKESGHSEGPMADXOF
Quote → lock → execute
When an instruction requires a currency conversion, Orchura quotes a live rate with the customer's configured margin applied. The quote is locked for a 30-second window. During that window, the rate is committed — the customer's treasury desk can confirm against a known number, not an estimate that drifts while the instruction is in flight. Margin is configured per customer at the account level, and the quoted rate is presented before confirmation — the desk commits against the number it sees.
Position management
Per-currency positions are tracked continuously. At the close of each business day, open positions across all customer instructions are netted and hedged at bank treasury level. Orchura does not carry FX exposure overnight on behalf of its customers; the hedging cycle runs daily.
Quote latency p95 under 100ms — Phase 1 target. No live performance data is published until Phase 1 operations are established.
6
SADC corridors
Zambia · Zimbabwe · Namibia · Eswatini · Lesotho · Botswana — ZAR via TCIB
Phase 1 target
SWIFT
USD · EUR · GBP — into and out of the correspondent network
Coverage beyond these corridors and currencies is roadmap.
For the trade desk
- When does the rate lock?
- At instruction confirmation, for 30 seconds.
- What rate do I see?
- Mid-market plus the customer-configured margin, quoted before commitment.
- When does the position close?
- The hedging cycle runs daily; open positions are not carried overnight.
- Where does the money sit?
- At a licensed sponsor bank, in per-customer virtual accounts denominated in the instruction currency. Orchura instructs and reconciles; it does not take custody.
- What happens if the quote window lapses?
- A fresh quote is issued. The lapsed quote is discarded; no instruction settles against a stale rate.
Your funds never appear on Orchura's balance sheet.
One virtual account per customer per currency, held at a licensed sponsor bank. Orchura instructs, records and reconciles. It never takes custody.
Customer
Funds owner
Orchura
Instruction layer · Ledger · Reconciliation
Sponsor bank
Fund custodian · Virtual accounts
Where the money sits
Customer funds are held at a licensed sponsor bank under one virtual account per customer, per currency. Orchura instructs the bank to move those funds; it does not hold them and does not carry them on its own balance sheet. Orchura maintains the double-entry ledger as the authoritative record of obligations — what is owed to whom, and in which currency — and reconciles that ledger against the bank's records each day.
The morning ritual
Three parties, one reconciliation. Each morning, Orchura's ledger is matched against the bank statement, and optionally against the customer's own ledger. The target: 100% matched — or in active investigation — by 08:00 SAST, T+1. Nothing is declared closed until every line balances.
Daily settlement statements are delivered in CSV, PDF and JSON. The format is the customer's choice; the cadence is non-negotiable.
The machinery of compliance
Every customer undergoes corporate KYB before production access is granted. Every transfer is screened against sanctions lists and PEP databases. Cross-border transfers on SWIFT and TCIB carry Travel Rule data. The audit trail is retained for seven years. Data handling operates under POPIA-compliant controls. A SOC 2 Type II observation window is scheduled for Phase 1 exit.
Operations run across two regions with automatic failover. Per-rail availability target: 99.95%. System status is published at status.orchura.com.
Compliance is machinery, not a badge. It runs on every transfer, regardless of amount or corridor.
Questions about the sponsor-bank structure, reconciliation format, or compliance documentation are answered in a conversation — not a self-service flow. Talk to our team
Built for operators who move serious money
Four kinds of operator, one platform underneath.
Corporates
Treasury departments, shared-service centres, and group finance teams running payroll, supplier disbursements, and collections at volume need payment infrastructure that behaves the same way every day. A missed settlement window is not a vendor inconvenience — it is a cash-flow event. Orchura delivers defined settlement windows per rail and a single daily reconciliation feed that maps directly onto a corporate treasury ledger.
Predictable settlement windows · Single reconciliation feed
Enterprises
For retail groups, commodities traders, and logistics operators, payment infrastructure is not a support function — it is operationally critical. Downtime does not show up in a ticket queue; it shows up in rand per minute of halted operations. Orchura maintains a 99.95% per-rail availability target across two regions with automatic failover, and publishes live rail status at status.orchura.com.
99.95% per-rail availability — target · Automatic failover
Commodity businesses
Exporters, import/export houses, and commodity trade desks move money across multiple currencies on margins where execution precision is not a preference — it is the trade. A rate that moves between quote and settlement, or a corridor that settles a day late, changes the economics of the position. Orchura quotes and locks FX rates with a 30-second default window; positions are netted and hedged at bank treasury level daily across ten currencies.
Locked FX rates · 30-second quote window · Ten currencies
PSPs
Acquirers, aggregators, and fintech platforms embedding Orchura as a back-rail are not looking for a co-branded checkout — they are looking for a rail layer that is wide, reliable, and documented thoroughly enough to integrate once and depend on indefinitely. Their end-users never see Orchura; their engineering team needs to. Orchura exposes a REST API with OpenAPI 3.1 spec, SDKs in four languages, and covers eight rails at Phase 1 exit — target.
Rail breadth · API reliability · OpenAPI 3.1 spec
The integration surface
Orchura exposes a REST API documented to OpenAPI 3.1, with SDKs in TypeScript, Python, Go and PHP. A sandbox environment with simulated rails issues credentials in under 30 seconds — no KYB required. Full API reference and integration guides are at docs.orchura.com.
| Spec | OpenAPI 3.1 |
|---|---|
| SDKs | TypeScript · Python · Go · PHP |
| Sandbox access | Under 30 seconds · No KYB required |
| Documentation | docs.orchura.com |
| Self-service portal | Included |
Moving serious money across borders?
A conversation, not a sign-up flow. Orchura's team scopes each integration directly.
Developer documentation and sandbox access at docs.orchura.com