Cross border payments

Russia and its BRICS partners are developing cross-border alternatives to U.S.-dominated payments systems such as Swift, driven by the rise in cross-border trade and a desire to find non-dollar alternatives to international payments systems vulnerable to sanctions by the U.S. government.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency innovations threaten to upend mainstream remittance providers, but there are still market gaps that may be best served by a large bank footprint.

Swift completed a seven-country trial of its cross-border GPI Instant payment service resulting in the successful integration with Singapore’s domestic instant payment network FAST.

Swift is building out its Global Payments Innovation (GPI) service to allow corporations to initiate and track payments across all of their banking partners from a single source.

While senders prefer mobile devices, recipients remain stubbornly attached to receiving cash.

Corporate payments provider WEX has added Visa commercial virtual cards to its platform for B2B payments.

Seattle-based digital remittance provider Remitly has raised $220 million in new investments and financing to accelerate its growth in more global markets.

Mastercard has closed its acquisition of cross-border payments provider Transfast, closing out a deal the card network announced in early March after dropping out of a bidding war with Visa for global payments company Earthport.

Merchant acquirer Credorax has engaged money transfer company Small World Financial and other partners to cover a broader mix of banking and payment acceptance available to the companies' European clients.

Payoneer, which developed a platform to facilitate cross-border payments, hired FT Partners to explore options for expansion, including a private funding round, according to a person familiar with the matter.