Mastercard Move has partnered with MoneyGram International to use its cross-border platform for sending payments to 38 markets worldwide. It’s merely the latest in a series of alliances between payment networks and remittance providers working to strengthen their burgeoning cross-border payment networks.
The MoneyGram network already spans 450,000 retail locations globally, but Mastercard Move aims to further expand its capabilities, including person-to-person and business payments, as well as cross-border transactions. With access to more than 95% of the world’s banked population, Mastercard Move supports more than 150 currencies.
In a similar move, Western Union and Visa formed a partnership last year. Their seven-year agreement enables Western Union customers to send funds directly to recipients’ eligible Visa cards and bank accounts in 40 countries across five regions.
Competition with Visa and Swift
Mastercard Move, unveiled last October, has been touted as facilitating near real-time, predictable, and transparent commercial cross-border payments. It is playing catch-up to Visa’s B2B Connect, which has been offering similar services for some time.
Both efforts are strategies for the two credit card giants to compete for cross-border business with networks like Swift and SEPA. To maintain growth, they also rely on entities like MoneyGram and Western Union.
“It’s a land rush for the networks, signing up any and all remittance providers,” said Hugh Thomas, Lead Analyst of Commercial Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research. “My suspicion is that the remittance providers are happy to get marketing funds from networks to talk about how they can now move funds card to card instantly.”
A Rush of Remittance Providers
That land rush has been ongoing for a couple of years. Providers are teaming up with either Mastercard Move or Visa Direct, the international payment network that uses Visa’s rails.
Earlier this year, ACE Money Transfer partnered with Mastercard Move to simplify and accelerate cross-border payments while offering multiple payout options to customers. In October 2023, Remitly integrated Mastercard’s Send and Cross-Border Services into its platform. Send is Mastercard’s push payment solution, while the broader Move platform encompasses fraud management, interfaces, and back-end fund movement.
Visa Direct had earlier signed up Europe-based TransferGo and Azimo, which has since been acquired by Papaya Global, as well as the Africa-focused Zepz (formerly WorldRemit). It also established an earlier partnership with MoneyGram itself, allowing the service’s customers to transfer funds directly to recipients’ Visa debit cards in various countries.
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