Cross border payments

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication has its sights set on expanding real-time payments in the Asia-Pacific region as part of its plan to further its first value-add service created from the Global Payments Innovation initiative.

TransferWise is the first nonbank to become a member of the U.K.’s Faster Payments service (FPS), but with Brexit on the horizon, it has to make sure it is similarly invested in other markets.

Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliate that operates Alipay, is planning an IPO that could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars — but the funds it could raise are secondary to the consumer population it already controls.

So far, U.K. fintechs' options range from relocating to other countries to finding ways to offset negative effects by attempting to “Brexit-proof” their businesses. The latter option can still be a substantial undertaking.

Fintech companies such as WorldFirst, TransferWise, OFX, and WorldRemit give people more cost-effective means to make cross-border transfers, writes Jon Dela Cruz, a researcher for iCompareFX.com.

In deploying the Social Pay money transfer service, ICICI Bank says it is the first bank in India to allow nonresidents to send money to family and friends in the country for special occasions like festivals and birthdays.

This year could be a pivot point for blockchain to move past proofs of concept to adoption, propelled by strong investor interest. But many still see the tech as being three to four years away from going mainstream.

Despite increased bank and investor activity around digital P2P payments, consumers haven't flocked to P2P in expected numbers.

Considering Walmart spent the better part of a decade trying to establish its own bank, it comes as no surprise that the retail giant is aiming big with its latest financial service.

The funding round comes on the heels of what BitPay cited as a record year in 2017 in processing more than $1 billion in bitcoin payments.