While not typical for me to comment on articles outside of the B2B space, in this case the posting in Yahoo Finance is about another cross-border partnership. We tend to cover this space regardless of use case.
The partnership is between Paykii, a 2015 Washington, D.C. startup specializing in bill pay, and WorldRemit, the London-based money transfer service. In this case, WorldRemit customers can utilize the Paykii platform to directly pay cross-border bills for themselves or on behalf of family members, bypassing the multi-step traditional paradigm of ‘remit cash to family, pay bill locally’, and allowing for seamless tracking.
‘The new service which is available from over 40 send countries including, UK, USA, Canada, and Australia and New Zealand, will enable WorldRemit customers to directly pay electricity, telephone, mobile, internet, water and gas bills in their home country for their families or themselves.’
Cross-border payment channels and use cases can sometimes overlap by definition. So even though Paykii identifies as a B2B bill pay PaaS, this particular use case is C2B. We have not had the benefit of a briefing, so we assume the platform is used between businesses as well.
One can see a gig economy use case, of course. The number of send countries is contrasted with only one receive country at present, which is India. There is a mention that more receive countries will be added during 2020. The cross-border space is active and user experiences continue to get easier.
‘The partnership between WorldRemit and Paykii allows WorldRemit customers to make real-time balance inquiries and to direct funds where they need to be spent. Most household bills are a regular occurrence, and being able to use just an account or phone number, It becomes really simple and easy for users to pay their expenses…Fabian Saide, Co-Founder/CEO of Paykii stated “A significant portion of the money sent as remittances ultimately goes to paying basic monthly household expenses. Now WorldRemit customers have another great service to better manage their global financial health by directly paying bills for their loved ones or themselves back home. WorldRemit and Paykii have worked closely to build a global bill payment experience that delivers ‘Peace of Mind’ by ensuring the timely payment of those essential family expenses.” ‘
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
