Paysend and Visa today announced a five-year extension to their existing global money movement arrangement through Visa Direct.
Under the partnership, Paysend and Visa will expand the scope of its earlier CurrencyCloud (now part of Visa Cross-Border Solutions) card to card partnership with the company beyond its present domestic and international scope. The firms’ expansion efforts will include a number of joint marketing initiatives in key expansion areas, such as the US-LATAM marketplace.
Under the Visa Direct program, the card processing leader uses its VisaNet global network to support payments in 170 countries and territories. Paysend services seven million customers, primarily consumers, through its global relationships with banks and top card providers, though it has placed additional focus on solving the payment woes of small to medium business customers (SMEs) - as exemplified by another partnership with Mastercard.
As Finextra reported earlier this week, the Paysend/Mastercard connection, dubbed Open Payment Network by the two companies, focuses heavily on the emerging needs of SMEs for more robust end-to-end payment capabilities. While it also supports consumer payment transfers, the link between Mastercard and Paysend networks notes a special emphasis on helping to solve supply-chain challenges that are hampering growth among smaller firms and their vendors and customers across the globe.
According to the announcement of the Mastercard partnership (also an expansion of an earlier cooperative agreement) Paysend and Mastercard will work to facilitate “real-time payments through connections with local network partners and instant payment schemes” and allow SMEs to “transact globally with ease, ensuring timely and secure payments at every step of the way.”