Alipay has launched a series of “International Consumer Friendly Zones” in China. The company’s owner, owned by China’s Ant Group, announced Monday (April 8) it is working with local merchants, tourism sites and commercial districts to enhance international visitors’ experience and drive business for local merchants in the country’s main tourist destination cities. Ant Group …
Interoperability in payments — paying anyone, anywhere, no matter the network — remains a Holy Grail in payments. And interoperability is a work in progress. But bit by bit and app by app, cross-border, cross-network and cross-wallet compatibility is being forged. This week, PayPal and Venmo began offering Visa’s peer-to-peer (P2P) payment system, Visa+. The announcement …
Alan Marquard, head of transfer solutions at Mastercard, told PYMNTS that remittances are ripe for continued transformation — to digital channels, and to digital wallets, which make international fund flows cheaper, faster and more convenient. Earlier this month, Mastercard announced a new connection with China’s Alipay, which enables bank, FinTech and corporate clients to offer …
Cross-border payments firm Thunes is expanding its partnership with Visa into Asia and Africa. The new collaboration, announced Thursday (March 21), will see Visa tap into Thunes’ network to send payments to over 108 digital wallet types and bank accounts throughout countries that include Kenya, the Philippines, Indonesia and Pakistan. Thunes will also implement Visa Direct’s push-to-card capability, to allow …