Braintree opens an office in Sydney, seven months after launching its service in Australia

Online payments platform Braintree has launched an office in Australia, some seven months after the company began offering services to businesses in the country.

Braintree Australia will be led by Tyson Hackwood who has been appointed to the position of Head of Market Development. Hackwood — who led the establishment of PayPal Here in Australia, one of the firms Braintree competes with — will be one of an initial 3-person staff based out of its new Sydney office.

The company has also revealed a number of the customers that it is currently working with in Australia, which include 99designs, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, KidsDeals and Microlancer.

With its physical presence, Braintree is upping its commitment to Australia’s startups. The company believes that many businesses have suffered due to a lack of easily-integrated payment solutions available in the country. That factor, it believes, makes scaling a business, either nationwide or regionally, all the more challenging.

Hackwood tells TNW that, in addition to signing up new clients and growing the Braintree team, he is committed to “getting ourselves into the community” by attending developer events, talks and leaning on its global network to help Australian companies expand overseas.

Already, the company offers multiple currency support for customers in Australia, enabling them to offer services in local currencies worldwide. Adding to that, Klas Bäck — General Manager of International and Payment Strategy — says the company can leverage partnerships and connections (not to mention its service) worldwide too:

“We’ll help startups get into other countries, but often their route depends on the products or service that they provide. Traditionally the common choice has been route into the US and Europe, but others might go after markets in Asia as a natural part of the evolution.”

Braintree is not revealing financial figures for its business in the country, but Hackwood says e-commerce in the country is “huge”, and that he wouldn’t be surprised if Braintree’s entry and future success brings more of its international competitors into the market.

“There’s enough space for more that just one payments provider,” he explains. “We came here because there were so many firms keen to use our service, and we’ve seen a lot of companies sign up already.”

Braintree is handling more than $2 billion in payments outside of the US worldwide per year, but for now its home market accounts for the lion’s share with $6 billion in annual payments. Both Hackwood and Bäck foresee the difference narrowing as its international rollout continues.

The company raised $35 million to fund its global growth in October 2o12. It partnered with LightSpeed just days after the announcement and acquired another company in the payments space, Venmo. Last year alone, Braintree expanded into 30 countries, including Canada and much of Europe.

For now it is not present in Asia but Bäck says the firm is continually evaluating new markets — so perhaps we can expect that to change soon.

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