Cross border payments

The many fintech startups that burst on the scene to compete with Western Union or MoneyGram are morphing into something else — white label providers for companies running on dated infrastructure.

Sentbe, a South Korean international money-transfer company, is expanding its payout options and market reach in a partnership with the mobile cross-border payments network TransferTo.

Long after e-commerce removed the biggest obstacles preventing U.S. merchants from selling internationally, there are still untapped pockets of opportunity.

Money launderers are opportunists and the real estate sector is a weak link when it comes to regulation, writes Jay Ryan, an executive vice president at Accuity.

WorldRemit has launched international remittance services in New York, one of the last big U.S. markets where it lacked a money transmitter license, positioning the company for a growth surge this year.

The network says more than $100 billion in Swift GPI payment messages are sent daily, enabling payments to be credited to the end beneficiaries within minutes — and some within seconds.

eBay’s change of payments processor signals the strong and continuing shift toward local, alternative methods of payment around the world, writes James Booth, head of business development for PPRO.

Eyeing sectors with increased independent work forces and growing tourism, cross-border payments provider Transpay says it is making its business-to-business mass payout platform available in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

International officials are discovering they can sometimes avoid bank fees by replacing currency transfers with the technology at the heart of Bitcoin.

Cross-border transactions are getting smaller in size and more frequent, rendering the correspondent banking model increasingly obsolete as new use cases pile up.

Success with blockchain does not depend on new technology alone. It requires bringing together experts in people, process and technology to simplify complex processes and apply tested methods to the new technical landscape, writes Michael Goodman, senior director of data and analytics for NTT Data Services.

PayPal's brand is so ingrained with eBay sellers that its success forced the online marketplace to buy it in 2002. Even after the companies separated, their businesses remained intertwined. So it is no small decision for eBay to instead select Adyen as its primary payment processor.

Plans by IDT and MercuryFX to test XRP for cross-border payments are another vote of confidence for Ripple’s products.

The San Francisco startup behind the cryptocurrency XRP claims it can send money around the world faster, cheaper and with greater transparency.

Despite the mad rush among investors to buy up bitcoin, XRP and other prominent cryptocurrencies, these digital coins have largely failed to operate as instruments for payment. MoneyGram's deal with Ripple might change that, or it might be the first nail in the crypto coffin.

Ripple, the startup looking to help the financial industry speed up payments with blockchain technology, said MoneyGram International Inc. is testing the use of its XRP digital currency to move funds.

Billionaire’s bid to buy MoneyGram is his latest setback trying to crack the U.S. market; banks want to stick with FICO while nonbanks want to use VantageScore.

The payments industry is getting pulled in two directions, as technology and e-commerce promise a borderless future for transactions while political forces apply the brakes.

The two payments companies failed to win U.S. government approval for their merger; the head of the Senate Finance Committee says he will leave when his term ends.

After a year of trying to appease U.S. regulators, Ant Financial and MoneyGram have terminated their merger agreement, challenging the Chinese company's strategy for global expansion.