- Key insights: Visa and Mastercard are expanding their role in cross-border payments.
- What's at stake: Both card companies are trying to gain more revenue from sources beyond card swipes.
- Forward look: In other global news, French payment firm Worldline is refocusing its business following regulatory pressure and financial challenges.
Mastercard is partnering with Chinese technology giant Tencent to combine the Mastercard Move funds transfer service with the TenPay cross-border payment rail and the Weixin Pay mobile payment service.
Senders outside of China can send money directly to people inside China via the Weixin Wallet balance or cards linked to Weixin Pay.
By connecting these services, Mastercard hopes to gain share of in-bound payment flows to China, noting that China received more than $31 billion in international P2P transfers in 2024, according to the World Bank.
"Across Asia Pacific, digital wallets are already an integral part of everyday life. With this collaboration, recipients gain fast, secure and transparent access to funds right where they already pay," said Anouska Ladds, executive vice president of Commercial New Payment Flows in Asia Pacific for Mastercard, in a release.Mastercard and Visa have both made new cross-border payment flows part of their strategies to
Visa expands distribution for real-time cross-border payments
Visa is collaborating with OwlTing Group to launch OwlPay Cash, a remittance app that will enable users in the U.S. to make local currency remittances in 26 countries at launch, including Mexico, India, Colombia, Argentina and Peru. The product will use Visa Direct, the card network's
OwlTing has additionally partnered with Cross River Bank to manage regulatory compliance in the U.S.
"For too long, cross-border payments have burdened U.S. immigrants and freelancers supporting families abroad with high costs and slow speed," said Darren Wang, founder and CEO of OwlTing Group, in a release.--John Adams
Visa to relocate European HQ to Canary Wharf
Visa is moving its European headquarters to the Canary Wharf neighborhood of east London in the summer of 2028.
Visa's headquarters are currently located in Paddington, about eight miles west of its future location. The payments giant will lease 300,000-square-foot space for 15 years, according to developer Canary Wharf Group.
"Relocating our European headquarters marks a significant investment in our people and a bold next step for Visa in Europe," said
Canary Wharf Group and others have invested approximately 7 billion pounds ($9.3 billion) in the region. JPMorganChase is building a new European headquarters in the area, and other banks, such as Barclays, BBVA, Citibank, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Revolut have also committed to the area. —Joey Pizzolato
MoneyGram appoints ex-Wells Fargo exec as CFO
MoneyGram has named its new chief financial officer, effective February 2026.
Winniford will be responsible for aspects of finance, accounting, tax and treasury and report directly to
Winniford joins MoneyGram from Wells Fargo, where he has spent 17 years. He most recently served as CFO of corporate and investment banking from 2022.
""Marc brings deep financial expertise, a disciplined approach to capital management and a strategic mindset that aligns with where MoneyGram is heading," Soohoo said in a statement. "As we transform our finance organization into an engine for operational excellence and growth, Marc's leadership will be key to continuing to strengthen our foundation and unlock new opportunities." —Joey Pizzolato
Worldline divests Swedish payment unit
As French processor Wordline manages
Worldline plans to use the proceeds of the sale to redeploy capital toward its core payments business.
Worldline, which has lowered its earnings outlook following a
Instacart adds ChatGPT for payments
Shopping app Instacart is expanding its use of
"With the Instacart app directly in ChatGPT, users can go from meal planning to checkout in a single, seamless conversation," Nick Turley, vice president and head of ChatGPT, said in a release. "It's another step toward bringing our vision to life—where AI delivers helpful suggestions and connects directly to real-world services, saving people time and effort in their everyday lives."--John Adams
SumUp to stand up cash deposits for merchants this month
Payments fintech SumUp is gearing up to launch new products for merchants on the heels of two key milestones.
SumUp will be launching cash deposits for merchants in the UK, Italy, Spain and France this month, giving them access to depository solutions that are usually offered by banks.
The company will also be introducing international bank account numbers, also known as IBANS, in Italy in early 2026, which will allow Italian merchants to use SumUp as their primary business account.
The expansion comes amid two key milestones for SumUp, including attracting more than 1 billion euro ($1.2 billion) in customer deposits across 1.5 million business accounts.
"Every feature we build removes a point of friction for our merchants. We are now going beyond this by enabling businesses to deposit their cash earnings instantly," SumUp Senior Vice President of Global Banking Felix Lamouroux said in a statement. "More IBANs in more European markets will enable entrepreneurs to do more business through our free accounts." —Joey Pizzolato
Identity verification fintech Socure buys BNPL credit startup Qlarifi
Identity verification fintech Socure has acquired buy now, pay later credit startup Qlarifi for an undisclosed amount, the company said.
"We built Qlarifi to solve a very real pain point: the lack of infrastructure to protect consumers from overextending themselves across multiple
Socure will add Qlarifi's real-time BNPL database to its identity verification technology and credit decisioning engine, called RiskOS. Socure uses machine learning to verify people are who they say they are, and works with Chime, DraftKings, SoFi and Greendot Bank, among others.
"BNPL has outgrown the legacy systems that were never designed to support their innovative lending products," said Johnny Ayers, CEO and founder of Socure, in a statement. "At the same time, consumers deserve a safe path to build credit, lenders need real time visibility to reduce fraud and risk, and regulators require transparency and reporting." —Joey Pizzolato
