CargoAi is speeding up the development of its CargoWALLET service, the online booking portal's payment solution, with the appointment of a Fintech veteran.

Launched in February 2023, CargoAi's CargoWALLET has already gained traction and today facilitates cargo payments in over 47 currencies.

In a statement, CargoAi named Olivier Veyrac as its senior vice president for CargoWALLET.

"Positive customer feedback and the rapid success of CargoWALLET show that the industry is keen on adopting reliable payment solutions," said Matt Petot, chief executive officer of CargoAi.

"CargoWALLET has reached critical adoption in its early version. I am delighted that Olivier Veyrac has joined us as Senior Vice President of CargoWALLET to take it to the next level," he added, noting that Veyrac has extensive financial technology and technology integration experience, working with companies across the world.

"Furthermore, his experience scaling global BtoB payments solutions and commercial partnerships will prove invaluable to the success of CargoAi fintech venture," Petot added.

CargoWALLET's capabilities include instant payment processing with a variety of preferred payment methods, such as local transfers and credit card payments — removing the reliance on cash payments and aims to ensure secure and efficient financial transactions.

The modern payment solution for air cargo with supply chain financing capabilities allows freight forwarders to make payments for their air cargo shipments directly within the CargoMART booking flow.

Over the last 18 months, CargoWALLET has been adopted by 5,000+ Airlines, Freight Forwarders, GHAs and logistic service providers.

CargoAi noted that with CargoWallet, CargoAi freight professionals can now pay using local payment methods from 150 countries and over 47 currencies.

The wallet is available to all logistics companies and is also proving particularly attractive to freight forwarders because of its instant-cross-border payment capability.

"With the wallet, airlines can accept instant payments from all their customers, rather than inconvenient cash payments, long settlement times or having to rely on bank guarantees before accepting a booking," the announcement said.

An additional use case is the integration of CargoWALLET directly with freight forwarders' Transport Management System (TMS), which permits faster payment and reconciliation via multiple payment methods.

"CargoWALLET offers the broadest reach by far in the industry with the enablement of over 200 payment methods from 150 countries. It meets the security and confidentiality requirements demanded by the strict banking regulations, making it one of the strongest options in the industry."

"There is still room for improvement. More new features, more partners, and more countries are my goals for the coming months," he added.

Cross-border payments via CargoWALLET have dropped processing times from days to seconds and reduced bank fees.

It also opened up the possibility for some import customers in some parts of the world to settle their accounts electronically for the first time.

"Many forwarders are going one step further and use CargoWALLET as their second bank account; with the addition of Olivier Veyrac, CargoWALLET is set to eliminate every last obstacle in the freight customer payment journey," Petot said.