Thunes, a cross-border payments company, is extending its alliance with Visa across Asia and Africa. This enhanced partnership will enable Visa to utilize Thunes' extensive network for transferring payments to over 108 digital wallet varieties and bank accounts in regions such as Kenya, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Additionally, Thunes will integrate Visa Direct's push-to-card feature, facilitating payouts to eligible Visa cards and accounts across over 190 countries and territories.
“Digital wallets are an easy-to-use, rapid, and secure payment method surging in popularity. More than 60% of the world’s population is expected to use them by 2026”, the companies said in a news release, noting that a growing number of banks are working with Visa to add cross-border payout capabilities to digital wallets. “Increasingly, these financial institutions see mobile wallet interoperability as a vital way to optimize payments to their consumers and business customers”, the release said.
The announcement highlights the continuation of the collaboration between Visa and Thunes, which commenced in October 2022 with the aim of expanding Visa Direct's accessibility to 1.5 billion digital wallets. Moreover, Visa participated in Thunes' $60 million Series C extension round in July of the preceding year. Visa has also forged partnerships in this domain recently, such as with FinTech Brightwell, leveraging Visa Direct to facilitate payouts to eligible bank accounts and wallets worldwide.
Visa has collaborated with CIBC to assist the bank's customers in sending remittances across borders more conveniently to digital wallets located in significant remittance destinations such as the Philippines, China, Bangladesh, Kenya, and others. “Payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard are uniquely positioned to underpin the pivot toward better cross-border fund flows”, PYMNTS wrote earlier this year. “Their networks have already scaled, and their endpoints and acceptance points already number in the billions”.
Meanwhile, research conducted by PYMNTS Intelligence reveals that only 23% of small businesses report being "very or extremely satisfied" with existing cross-border payment solutions. Despite this, data indicates that nearly 40% of small businesses experienced a rise in cross-border payments sent or received between 2020 and 2021. Moreover, the trend of these payments is on the rise, reflecting an increasing amount of business conducted beyond domestic borders.