Cross border payments

China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is partnering with Saxo Payments Banking Circle, a European B2B payments platform specializing in online cross-border transfers.

The single-platform transfer is part of London-based Moneycorp's full integration of Commonwealth FX, a U.S.-based corporate international payments business it acquired at the start of the year —and part of a strategy to expand its U.S. market.

Singapore-based money transfer platform TransferTo is working with Stellar.org to facilitate low-cost blockchain-based cross-border remittances for underbanked and unbanked consumers in emerging markets.

South Korean cellular carrier LG Uplus, a unit of LG, says early next year it will launch a test of a blockchain-based overseas payment system.

At this year’s Swift Business Forum in New York, executives said banks can build "more intelligent routing" to speed up payments and reduce the cost of processing and delivery.

The payments company released a platform made up of nine B2B networks and powered by Microsoft’s Azure.

The payments technology that powers international trade is crucially important because it helps streamline the processes and trim the costs of conducting business overseas, according to Darren Hutchinson, head of commercial in the Americas for WorldFirst.

The highly lucrative remittance business, once the sole purview of established players with large agent-based locations such as Western Union and MoneyGram, is under an all-out attack by digital fintechs.

The popularity of technology-driven international transactions are making their way to TransferWise's balance sheet.

The Bank of Lithuania has been courting fintechs which need an EU payments or banking license to operate in Europe. In July 2018, it introduced an e-licensing tool that makes it cheaper and quicker to submit the information necessary to obtain an operating licence.