Citigroup Inc. says it expects to increase its international payment volume by expediting cross-border corporate disbursements to individuals, such as pension payments or insurance payments.
The service, WorldLink Cash, is an enhancement to WorldLink Payment Services, which Citi has offered to corporate clients and correspondent banks for more than 20 years.
Tapodyuti Bose, the global head of corporate payments in Citi's corporate and investment banking unit, said in an interview this month the next step is to enable corporate payments to individuals using stored-value cards.
"We'll be rolling that out shortly," he said.
Citi conducted a pilot test of WorldLink Cash in the fourth quarter with a single payer sending U.S. dollar pension payments to retirees living abroad, Mr. Bose said. He would not name the payer.
The cash disbursement service, announced in January and operated by Citibank Europe PLC, an Irish unit, now can disburse cash to 190 countries.
WorldLink Payment, as a payment execution service, does not require the payer to maintain an account at Citi, Mr. Bose said this month in an interview. "We can grab the funding from their main account, with Citi or somebody else."
The service handles the foreign exchange, eliminating currency risk for the payer and obviating the need to have multiple accounts in different countries, he said, and it provides "last mile connectivity" to local clearing houses around the world.
Connectivity can help expedite time-sensitive bulk disbursements, such as insurance claims, he said.
"These are urgent, small-ticket payments that need to get executed the same day," so the beneficiary has access to the money, Mr. Bose said. A disaster victim "needs cash, and he needs it the same day."
In December, Citi announced that WorldLink Payment Services had begun delivering dividend payments from companies in the United States and the United Kingdom to shareholders in other countries in their local currencies, under an agreement with the Australian corporate services provider Computershare Ltd.
