Form3 Partners With Mastercard To Advance Real-Time Payments 

London cloud-processing platform Form3 is partnering with Mastercard to enhance and streamline real-time payments worldwide.

“Our partnership with Mastercard will enable Form3 to accelerate its ambitions to grow on an international scale while complementing the services we have today and those we are building for the future,” Michael Mueller, founder and chief executive officer of Form3, said in a press release on Wednesday (Dec. 16).

He added that the tie-up with Mastercard will “make our global ambitions a reality.” By harnessing the power of cloud-based architecture, financial institutions will be able to “safely and securely handle significant payment processing volume in near-real time.” 

The new funds follow a $33 million August fundraise from new investors, including Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide Building Society and venture capital firm 83North. Founded in 2016, Form3’s cloud-native, API platform powers FIs to securely and efficiently run and scale their payments infrastructure.  

“This partnership with Form3 will directly deliver against our multi-rail strategy to enhance more payment flows for our customers. In today’s rapidly changing payments landscape, it’s critical that we evolve our solutions and continue to improve transactional speed, convenience and security for all our stakeholders across the world,” said Gregor Dobbie, CEO of Mastercard’s Vocalink. Dobbie will join Form3’s Strategic Advisory Board.

Form3 is certified as a U.K. Faster Payments Aggregator with Pay.UK. Next year, it will process “a significant percentage” of all U.K. Faster Payments. It will also offer the complete SEPA suite for European payments.

Mastercard also recently partnered with Chase and Air Canada to offer Aeroplan cards to U.S. customers. Canada’s largest airline, Air Canada, said Chase will be the exclusive issuer of the card and Mastercard will be the exclusive payments network. The Aeroplan loyalty program was overhauled for increased flexibility and expanded rewards with over 35 partner airlines.

Recent PYMNTS research indicated that 90 percent of consumers want to get paid faster, however they are not usually given a choice. In a PYMNTS interview last month, Sherri Haymond, executive vice president of digital partnerships at Mastercard, said that the pandemic made it clear that people want digital, frictionless options.