Industry veteran Freddy Greenish has spoken to IQ about the launch of Chorus TM – a one-stop financial solution for music and entertainment professionals.
Greenish and Simon Liddell most recently ran the entertainment and music teams at spend management platform Centtrip, and have now teamed up with Equals Money PLC to create the new venture, which is primarily targeted at artist managers, business managers and tour managers.
Powered by Equals Money, the Chorus TM platform will offer fast and secure UK and international payments, real time spend reporting, streamlined reconciliation processes and FX management strategies.
“Our ambitions are to become the go-to global treasury management platform for the music and entertainment industry,” Greenish tells IQ. “We want to continually strive to offer market leading technology and first-class customer service. We have a track record of working with over 1,000 entertainment clients from the UK and Europe, we are excited to fully launch in the US in the coming months. The US is a huge opportunity – we are then looking into South America and beyond.”
Greenish explains why the parties felt there was a gap in the market for Chorus TM’s services, which include
named multi-currency IBAN accounts, a multi-currency Chorus TM MasterCard able to spend in 20 different currencies on one card, and access to more than 140 currencies worldwide.
“Using up-to-date technology allows the music industry to maximise income and reduce costs by streamlining their processes”
“We feel that the technology behind multi-currency payment platforms and card expense management, especially in live touring, hasn’t changed much or kept pace with other industries,” he says. “Our platform offers new products and functionality not seen before in a single interface.
“Things move fast in the music industry and partnering with Equals Money PLC allows us to leverage their expertise and tech manpower whilst allowing Chorus TM to be agile enough to react and add future improvements if requested by our clients.”
He continues: “Music and entertainment is an ever-increasing global business, and we are finding that all of our clients are becoming more exposed to various currencies when it comes to their income, whether that is touring-related, royalties, merchandise, sync, etc, and our aim is to help clients manage that aspect of their business in the most cost-effective way.
“Using up-to-date technology allows the music industry to maximise income and reduce costs by streamlining their processes. Touring is a prime example: if a tour manager has their wallet stolen, we can have a virtual card available on their phone in 30 seconds. They can pay the hotel bill in the local currency rather than the costs of using a normal debit/credit card.”
“Having worked with clients in music and entertainment for almost 15 years, we’re passionate about this industry”
Following its UK launch this month, Chorus TM have also been onboarding US clients with a full launch planned in the coming months.
“Having worked with clients in music and entertainment for almost 15 years, we’re passionate about this industry,” finishes Greenish. “We are experienced experts and understand the challenges of our global clients. Secondly, when something happens out of everyone’s control, we have a team on call that they trust to quickly to resolve any issue they might have. We wouldn’t be where we are today without our clients and with their invaluable input the Chorus TM platform reflects this.”
Liddell adds: “The Chorus TM platform is cutting-edge, representing a great step forward in the products we can now offer. Being powered by Equals Money allows us to leverage their premier technology and expertise. We share the same ambition, to provide the perfect solution and save money for our entertainment clients whilst making the lives of the teams behind them easier.”
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