Having just published a piece on blockchain developments in the corporate banking space, including a growing focus on the potential benefit of BCT in the cross border payments space, we noticed this release, appearing in Finextra, which provides another example of how things are unfolding. In this case we have FIS (which of course recently announced the intended purchase of WorldPay for about $34 billion), partnering with Visa to bring better cross border payments experiences to B2B clients.
‘FIS is integrating its technology with Visa B2B Connect to enable mutual bank clients to send their corporate clients’ B2B payments directly to and from another participating bank, removing the friction associated with multiple intermediaries.’
We don’t have any details of how the partnership with FIS is structured, but Visa is expected to make an announcement soon about a full launch of Visa B2B Connect, a platform designed to improve the international payments experience. The system was first announced in 2016 and has been undergoing pilots in various markets, while being integrated with corporate payment partners, including Bottomline Technologies. The system uses a BCT infrastructure and is integrating the Hyperledger Fabric framework. The platform also uses APIs to allow partner banks to develop an end-to-end B2B payments solution for cross-border and cross-currency transactions.
‘To encourage uptake, FIS has built a custom integration module that cuts the need for banks to carry out tech updates to their systems before using the Visa platform.’
Making things easier for corporates to adopt new technology is a fundamental need to spur adoption, so we like the ‘cuts the need…’’ part of that announcement, and expect more events to unfold in BCT cross border during 2019.
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
