US: Mastercard buys Transfast

Mastercard disclosed on Friday, March 8, that it will acquire global cross-border money transfer company Transfast, which works with both P2P (peer-to-peer) and B2B (business-to-business) payments.

Mastercard announced in a press release that Transfast will “complement Mastercard’s wide range of payment solutions by increasing worldwide connectivity in the account-to-account space, enhancing compliance capabilities and offering more robust foreign exchange tools.”

Currently, Transfast supports the Mastercard Send service. “We believe Transfast gives us the strongest platform to immediately enhance our cross-border capabilities and further deliver on our strategy,” said Michael Miebach, Mastercard chief product officer. “The addition of Transfast adds to our leading position in meeting business, government and consumer payments needs – whether B2B, P2P or other flows. Today’s news cements our collaboration and sets the stage to provide our customers a unique, ready-to-go solution upon closing.”

Cross-border payments can be problematic for businesses because they can face larger costs, be subject to regulatory and compliance at their destinations, and have a completion date that can be out of the sender’s hands. The goal of the acquisition is to solve these issues and allow for a more transparent process.

“There are substantial synergies with Mastercard for even further growth across our products,” said Samish Kumar, CEO of Transfast. “Over the past 12 years, we have grown our capabilities to connect, track and settle transactions with almost every bank around the world via our curated and extensive network. We’ve worked in support of Mastercard Send, and this feels like the natural next step in our relationship.”

Mastercard previously had a relationship with Earthport, but it stated on Friday that it was allowing the window in which it might buy the company to lapse.

“(Mastercard) has today exercised its right to terminate the cooperation agreement entered into by Bidco and Earthport with immediate effect,” the company said in a statement.