Cross border payments

Local payment methods cater to the technology and user-experience needs of specific regions, says Steve Villegas, vice president of partner management at PPRO.

As the payment industry continues to innovate and expand across borders, it increasingly will need to be mindful of data regulations requiring data localization that multiply the complexities and cost of creating a seamless data flow and user experience, Alston & Bird’s Richard Willis and Laura K. Song write.

U.S. companies have a leg up on international competition. Yet, many retailers are opting to focus on domestic customer bases, claims Steve Villegas, vice president of partner management at PPRO.

Ant Financial’s Alipay is deploying blockchain technology to power a cross-border remittance service for Pakistan’s Telenor Microfinance Bank and Valyou of Malaysia.

A director in the foreign-exchange department of American Express has been suspended, as the card brand continues to investigate pricing practices in that division of the company.

Wire transfers have higher fees and fraud risk than other methods, according to Chen Amit, CEO of Tipalti.

The market for cross-border person-to-person (P2P) remittances is massive. It experienced double-digit growth in 2018 as consumers migrated from one country to another in search of better economic opportunities, as well as to escape political and financial upheaval in their home countries.

China’s expanding number of tourists is creating demand for more payment choices, and Wirecard hopes to tap into the growth with a prepaid card it’s developed with Ctrip, China’s largest travel agency.

The National Bank of Kuwait is leveraging Ripple’s blockchain technology for a new cross-border payments service.

The U.S. fintech hopes its service will help encourage financial inclusion in Mexico, where 65 percent of the population is in the informal economy.

Visa has a deal to acquire the London-based bank payments provider Earthport for 198 million pounds ($250.6 million U.S.), pending approval from Earthport's shareholders.

The financial services and payments industries are aggressively trying to replace older systems with sleeker technology, but Swift has a separate goal in mind with the Global Payments Innovation system, or GPI.

On the surface, Ant Financial's reported discussions to acquire U.K.-based WorldFirst demonstrate a savvy business move to establish itself beyond the substantial market it controls in China. It also shows how far the Chinese payments giant is willing to go to resist the headwinds of U.S. policy.

The ubiquity of plastic payment cards makes it hard to imagine a future without them, but Japan’s JCB card network already envisions it.

Latin America’s fast-growing e-commerce industry is providing opportunities to provide payments gateways for cross-border transactions originating in countries that don't favor digital or credit card payments.

The Global Payments Innovation service now moves 55 percent of Swift's cross-border transactions as it nears its second anniversary.

Gifting is becoming more international and diverse, leading to a role for a a distributed ledger to streamline the user experience and bolster incentive marketing.

Fifteen major banks will test Swift's pre-validation service for Global Payments Innovation transactions, focusing on quickly identifying and eliminating errors or omissions in payment messages.

Kenya’s Family Bank Ltd. will collaborate with London fintech SimbaPay to launch a transfer service to China with WeChat.

New payments technology and rising demand for services are expanding the scope and reach of most of the world’s leading domestic payment schemes. But challenges from Visa and Mastercard loom large.