Cross border payments

Speed stands at the forefront of any real-time payments deployment, but the real staying power in new payments innovation rides on the development philosophy of the platform itself.

The pandemic and subsequent economic crisis have raised the stakes, since the government’s role in recovery and how stimulus is delivered — and policies impacting the goals of card and technology companies — will be largely determined by the philosophy of leadership.

Mastercard is working with cross-border tuition specialist Flywire on a fall promotion targeting international students based in certain countries in the Middle East and Africa.

After two years of helping banks connect globally to domestic faster payments rails, Swift is planning to expand on that concept.

After two years of helping banks connect globally to domestic faster payments rails, Swift is planning to expand on that concept.

The new unit plans to connect the startups it backs, such as the global payments network Veem, with experts at the company who can provide business advice.

Blockchain's cross-border power eliminates the intermediary and solves the problem of rendering the traditional processing system redundant, and processes the payment on a chain with no middleman intervention, says ForumPay's Joshua Tate.

While companies may already have technology in place that supports efficient payments and collections in their home region, treasurers and finance managers need to reflect the diverse and evolving payment and collection demands of customers and suppliers in each market, says Standard Chartered's Tarek Elyafi.

The retailers seeing exponential growth are the ones who have tailored and localized their payments offering to a global audience, says PPRO's Steve Villegas.

With consumers and merchants alike sharing the need to be paid faster, the case for adopting real-time payments globally has quickly advanced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Digital remittance provider WorldRemit has agreed to acquire Sendwave, a mobile app-based remittance company focused on servicing the African money transfer corridors.

Remitly has added 11 new mobile wallets to its network, almost doubling its reach to 300 million consumers, to meet demands for cash alternatives amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brad Windbigler, treasurer at Western Union, talks to us about how the company navigated the challenges of the pandemic — particularly as the global nature of its network meant it had to contend with moving money across parts of the world that recovered at vastly different rates from one another.

The massive shift to digital has created new challenges in cross-border payment processing, says Tipalti's Manish Vrishaketu.

As the global economy continues to unlock more opportunities for cross border transactions and payments, the ability for businesses to communicate with global consumers in their language (or currency) of choice is vital, says Fiserv's Brian Frey.

Western Union confirmed yet again that for a payments company to survive the coronavirus pandemic, it needed to enter the crisis with a strong footing in digital payments.

MoneyGram International's digital transformation came at just the right time, considering walk-in traffic at MoneyGram locations in certain regions of the world was stymied for months by the coronavirus pandemic. But for many people, digital is still no replacement for the human touch.

Cross-border payments do not and should not exist in a vacuum, says Veem's Marwan Forzley.

One way banks can prepare for a smooth cutover to new standards is by implementing a core banking / payment solution that uses ISO 20022, says Infosys Finacle's Peter Ryan.

Remitly has raised $85 million in its latest fundraising round, valuing the company at $1.5 billion as the COVID-19 pandemic drives consumers to increasingly send remittances digitally.