By Elijah Odhiambo
Mastercard, a global payment provider, has in that will let financial institutions quickly and easily set up international payments for consumers and small businesses.
The new integration facilitates cross-border payments through a simple and customizable front-end user interface for the existing Mastercard Cross-Border Services offering, as well as other services. These include a range of tools to meet compliance and regulatory requirements such as sanctions screening.
lan Marquard, Executive Vice President, Transfer Solutions at Mastercard said the Cross- Border Services Express aims to help small and mid-tier banks solve their clients’ pain points and provide them with similar international payment features that larger banks offer to meet their clients’ expectations – irrespective of their size and scale.
“With a simple, turn-key integration, Cross-Border Services Express levels the playing field and provides small and mid-tier banks, including credit unions and community banks, with the same international payments features regardless of their size and scale”, Ian said.
He noted that the launch is in line with the platform’s goal to provide payment options across various borders.
“It’s our goal to provide choice, access, and transparency for payments across borders,” he said. With Mastercard’s Cross-Border Services, participating financial institutions can offer their customers international payments in more than 60 currencies to over 100 markets covering 90 percent of the world’s population.
The service offers users flexibility in how they pay by delivering funds to bank accounts, mobile wallets, cards, and cash payout locations with full transparency and predictability over transaction status and delivery time.
In order to fulfill the rising expectations of customers for digital experiences, Mastercard worked with Fable FinTech and Payall Payment Systems to create this market solution through a smooth user interface.
According to Mastercard’s 2022 Borderless Payments Report, cross-border payments are increasingly being sent and received digitally, with 75 percent of consumers using mobile apps to do so. Even so, the report noted that many challenges still exist around transparency and costs.
About 39 percent of SME respondents said that cross-border payments slow their supply chain and one quarter reported that suppliers had refused to work with them because of uncertainty over payment times.
Jane Prokop, Executive Vice President, Small and Medium Enterprises at Mastercard said for small and medium enterprises to work effectively, it is important to keep money flowing.
“Cross-Border Services Express will enable financial institutions to meet SMEs’ needs for an efficient and digital cross-border payments solution they can count on to pay employees, suppliers, and partners fast and with full predictability,” she said.
