For London-based tech startup Clearsettle, liquidity isn't justimportant to support the business—it is the business. Thecompany provides a technology platform that settles cross-bordertransactions for online merchants.

Alistair Cotton, treasury manager for Clearsettle, explains hiscompany's service by describing a hypothetical U.K. footwearretailer: “Maybe their shoes suddenly become fashionable in Asia,and lots of Japanese customers start coming to shop on theirwebsite,” he says. “But if the merchant only has a U.K. cardacquirer, Japanese customers' credit cards won't work. WhatClearsettle does is connect to acquirers and other organizationsthat provide payment settlement. So for the merchant, instead ofhaving to do integrations with a lot of different banks around theworld, they do one integration with us and we allow them toglobalize their acceptance of payments on their websites.”