How Woden Transformed TerraPay’s Small Transactions into Huge Growth

“We needed simple positioning for engaging partners to build the infrastructure that converts cash to digital in a borderless world.”

THE STORY OF TERRAPAY

TerraPay has built “the leading global payments infrastructure allowing individuals and businesses across 200+ countries to settle any payment instantly in a secure & reliable manner,” and its platform has created new possibilities for global financial empowerment by how the small payments that fuel the global economy are sent and received.

The technology underpinning TerraPay’s platform gave it a market-leading position in international remittances. But to truly build a cashless world, TerraPay needed to rapidly expand its global footprint and partner network against competitors like Thunes. After raising a $9.6MM Series A, TerraPay engaged Woden to craft the strategic narrative it needed to become essential and serve as the foundation for global expansion.

Woden’s proprietary StoryKernel simplified the complexity of TerraPay’s business into positioning that resonated with partners. The strategies in TerraPay’s StoryGuide helped them double their footprint and land a $100MM Series B.

THE CHALLENGE

TerraPay launched in 2015 as an international remittances platform. Through innovative technology and agility that attracted partners like Western Union, the company won approval to do business in more than 60 countries around the world. TerraPay’s founders became increasingly focused on the high cost its customers experienced sending money: nearly 10 percent in some parts of the world.

Brands like VISA, Sendwave, and Express Wave are trusted by customers to send money around the world. But what they charge, and how quickly it’s delivered, depends on infrastructure that moves money across borders. Batched transactions sent by banks cause delays that could determine whether an expat’s family can buy food on any given day.

TerraPay technology allows small payments to move across borders instantly, securely, and inexpensively. But as investments in compliance, dynamic routing strategies, and the platform itself increasingly added complexity. Ambar Sur, TerraPay’s CEO, challenged Woden to give them a strategic narrative that reflected their agility—and could align his team for growth.

“There were too many of us thinking too many things about TerraPay. Woden channeled that into one: small payments deserve safe, borderless journeys.” – Ambar Sur, Founder & CEO

WODEN’S SOLUTION

Woden’s partnership with TerraPay began with extensive research and interviews. The team raved about TerraPay’s agility compared to traditional banking partners, commitment to quick decision-making, and the innovative technology behind the platform. However, partners saw something different: stable infrastructure on which they could build their own customer acquisition strategies.

TerraPay’s partners needed more than a technology vendor. As transactions became increasingly cashless, the economy became increasingly borderless, and compliance became increasingly complex, they needed an entirely new foundation for their operations.

Woden repositioned TerraPay from being technology to infrastructure. Using the evocative story-driven language of a “global payments highway,” Woden was able to quickly communicate the stability associated with infrastructure, as well as the speed of transit it enabled.

This concept was extended into the narrative that made TerraPay essential. TerraPay’s StoryKernel was built on the belief that “the smallest payment deserves a borderless journey as safe as the largest.”

The StoryKernel spoke to the needs of TerraPay’s B2B partners by tying these borderless journeys to customer loyalty and increased frequency of transactions, while still anchoring the arc of the story in financial empowerment and the borderless world TerraPay believes in.

With more than 500 employees spread across five continents, Terrapay’s StoryKernel needed an actionable strategy. That alignment was created with the leadership team during a collaborative session, the StorySeminar, and fully realized when Woden crafted TerraPay’s StoryGuide to ensure the story reached its transformative potential.

The TerraPay StoryGuide outlined an efficient customer journey built around new buyer personas. This buyer journey included tactical messaging and story-aligned strategies that supported expansion into new markets and growth with new partners. This gave TerraPay the tools to secure its advantage over competitors seeking to expand in the same areas.

Following delivery of the StoryGuide, Woden worked directly with TerraPay’s internal marketing and business development teams in StoryAccelerator. This ongoing work created the materials needed to onboard new employees with the story and reinforce the key elements of the StoryKernel until they were truly owned, and lived, by everyone in the brand.

THE MAKING OF AN ESSENTIAL BRAND

With a strategic narrative built by Woden, TerraPay has extended its position as the leader in global payments infrastructure. TerraPay’s rapid growth has continued—from 60 countries when they engaged Woden to more than 200 in 2023.

Woden’s work with TerraPay has made its value to partners clearer than ever. But more importantly, it has aligned the company and all of its stakeholders around making cross-border payments accessible, secure, and affordable for all. Complex products require simple positioning that connects with buyers to become essential. Brands like TerraPay use their strategic narrative to provide that framework—and inspire the world to create safe, borderless journeys for even the smallest payment.