Cross border payments

As the trade war ramps up, some cross-border payment companies are steering into the storm by selling lower-cost automated processing as a way to offset expensive supply chains.

Due to regulations that are designed to thwart money laundering, anyone attempting to transact on a global scale will encounter a patchwork of complex laws and local requirements that make payments anything but borderless, writes Brandon Spear, president of MSTS.

Brexit's implications for the U.K.'s technology industry are deepening political fractures, with no clear answer as to how startups fintechs and challenger banks can operate in the U.K. after it leaves the European Union.

Nanopay is planning to add bank, processor and accounting software partners for a B2B cross-border and domestic transfer service which it says exceeds the performance of blockchain-based systems.

Geoswift, an international payments provider, has launched an inbound P2P service with the goal of simplifying the complex regulatory processes involved in sending money to China.

South Asian remittance firm InstaReM has launched its cross-border P2P and B2B digital money transfer service in the U.K. and the EU as it prepares for an IPO in 2021. It also expects to become profitable by then.

While Europe is still making sense of an international Visa outage in early June, fintech disruptor TransferWise experienced its own outage that lasted up to 11 hours on Thursday, with website, app and card payments unavailable to the company’s 1 million-plus users.

London-based TransferWise's business model has been to undercut traditional banks’ foreign transfer fees, and the company's marketing has long emphasized its role as a plucky rival to banks — going so far as to invoke a comparison to Robin Hood. But the company's offering can also benefit the banks that see value in making peace with an upstart.

Western companies desperately want a chunk of China's vast domestic consumer payments market, though they may find themselves feeling lucky to be left out.

A business plan for bitcoin with consumer need behind it has yet to be proven, said Hikmet Ersek, CEO of Western Union.

Cross-border payments firm Payoneer is seeing growth in Asia from local marketplaces, digital platforms, and merchants selling internationally. It is also benefiting from a rise in payments from India to foreign marketplaces and contractors.

The Patriot Act, for example, requires all U.S. businesses to comply with regulations issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Those that fail to comply, knowingly or inadvertently, are susceptible to significant fines and even legal action, writes Peter Shore, general manager of Transpay.

Students and their families are often not aware of how complicated the cross-border tuition process can be until they’re in the process, writes Steve Villegas, vice president of partner management for PPRO's U.S. headquarters.

Geoswift has launched an inbound P2P money transfer service in China — offering the flip side of its core services supporting tuition and other corporate payments for Chinese students, workers and tourists who are outside of their home country.

The service aims to offer consumers in Ghana more digital transfer options while also expanding the company's digital growth.

Mobile technology can infer a user’s identity and make device-based decisions on the validity of a transaction, writes Kayne McGladrey, an IEEE member and director of information security services for Integral Partners.

Banks are at the forefront of blockchain innovation, disrupting cross-border payments, trade finance and product development worldwide.

At least two cryptocurrency companies, Coinbase and ivyKoin, have talked to federal regulators about obtaining a bank license, but there is skepticism that it will happen. Here's why.

With the use of global standards, merchants can also strengthen and consolidate their relationships with vendors and minimize expenditure on hardware and software solutions and maintenance, writes Normand Provost, liaison chair of Nexo.

Blockchain's potential for revolutionizing the world’s payment systems has captured the imagination in recent years, and last month Santander became the U.K.'s first bank to use the technology to create a new international payments service.