Visa expands real-time push payments with launch of Visa Direct Payouts

Visa has expanded its push payments platform to enable businesses and their customers to make real-time domestic and cross-border payments.

The new offering, called Visa Direct Payouts, enables businesses to utilize a single connection to VisaNet, through one of its Visa Direct Payout APIs, to make person-to-person payments as well as disbursements such as insurance claims, marketplace seller payouts and remittances. Domestic payouts can be made to eligible cards while cross-border payments can be made to either eligible cards or accounts.

“As digital commerce accelerates, Visa is innovating to give financial institutions, governments, individuals and businesses new ways to pay and get paid beyond the card,” said Bill Sheley, senior vice president and global head of Visa Direct, in a release. “Backed by the operating scale and performance of VisaNet, the solution integrates Visa’s acquisition of Earthport to transform how Visa’s clients deploy and optimize global money movement programs.”

The market for cross-border remittances has been strongly impacted by the COVID-19 virus, however, there are signs that pre-pandemic volumes are beginning to return. Initial estimates in April 2020 by the World Bank had predicted that the global cross-border remittance volume would fall by 20% or more in 2020. However, as countries began reopening later in the year, the World Bank revised its early estimate in October to a more moderate decline of about 7% for 2020 volume.

Visa Direct's Payout feature provides businesses with multi-rail access to a combined 5 billion cards and accounts across more than 200 geographies, supporting 160 currencies,connecting to 16 card-based networks, 65 domestic Automated Clearing House schemes, seven real-time payment networks and five payment gateways.

Several global Visa clients have announced expansion plans to leverage the new service for their clients. For example, MoneyGram is launching an enhanced money movement option for its customers who are sending and receiving funds across borders, while Standard Chartered Bank Limited in Hong Kong is offering it to its retail customers for international transfers.

“With 152% year-over-year cross-border digital transactions growth for MoneyGram Online in 2020 and an impressive 650% transaction growth for Visa Direct in the fourth quarter, consumer demand for our digital P2P payment capabilities continues to skyrocket,“ said Alex Holmes, MoneyGram chairman and CEO, in a release. “Our continued expansion with Visa Direct is an important component of our customer-centric strategy to provide a streamlined, frictionless customer journey and real-time transfer capabilities to millions across the globe who rely on our essential service.”