The latest in the ongoing stream of partnerships taking place on the global payments scene is one between Visa and TerraPay, a 2015 startup out of Amsterdam specializing in mobile international payments. By entering into the partnership, Visa gains more utilization of its’ network and TerraPay gains access to more potential partners. A piece posted on Cision PR Newswire covers the partnership:
‘The TerraPay and Visa global partnership is aimed to develop and deliver solutions to drive repeat consumption of the mobile wallets and digital currency for digital payments and remittances…”We at TerraPay view the Visa partnership as a next step towards the development of sustainable and scalable interoperable payment options for our partners and their consumers’ payment requirements,” said Ambar Sur, Founder and CEO of TerraPay.’
Although TerraPay describes itself as B2B given that it provides a PaaS to business partners, the use cases mentioned in the release are consumer related. Remittances, bill pay and m-commerce seem to be the main drivers of transaction volume. We would need to have a briefing to understand if there are actual B2B payments use cases planned at some point. There is also the real-time cross-border capability mentioned in the piece, which we would also have to understand.
‘Global m/e-commerce continues to evolve and is expected to reach $4,574 Billion by 2023, according to Allied Market Research, up from $601 billion in 2016. Interoperability with payment methods and seamless consumer journey to conclude the transactions will be key focus to drive consumption.’
The partnership is part of the Visa Fintech Fast Track program that supports startups across the globe.
“Partnerships are fundamental to Visa’s business model and we look forward to collaborating with TerraPay to drive seamless and interoperable financial services and products to push much desired financial inclusion in our communities,” said Otto Williams, Vice President and Head of Strategic Partnerships, Fintechs and Ventures in CEMEA at Visa. “Interoperability is key to a digitally connected payments ecosystem and we are excited that TerraPay is part of our growing Fintech Fast Track program as we work together to connect more communities with these solutions.”
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group