Push to Card Offers Cost, Speed Benefits For Global Money Transfers

In the quest to make end-to-end money movement faster, secure and frictionless across borders, Ruben Salazar, Global Head of Visa Direct and Abdul Abdulkerimov, Paysend chairman and co-founder, say simplicity is key.

That shared goal is a key part of the reason why Visa and Paysend are strengthening their strategic collaboration to enable Paysend’s customers globally to send money in real-time to eligible Visa cards across 170 countries and territories.

In an interview with PYMNTS discussing the five-year partnership announced on Thursday (Sept. 14), Salazar pointed out that although significant improvements have been made to streamline and enhance domestic money transfers, cross-border payments, which lag, need a boost.

“[Unlike domestic transfers], cross-border environments remain full of friction and uncertainty in many cases, and for us the one thing to focus on is simplicity” to build a frictionless money movement experience for consumers and businesses worldwide, Salazar said.

One of the key advantages of the collaboration is the real-time nature of the transactions, made possible by Visa Direct — Visa’s real-time money movement network — which connects 3.4 billion card credentials worldwide in seconds.

According to Abdulkerimov, that ability to send money in real-time to cards has significantly improved the cross-border money transfer experience not just for consumers in its U.K. home turf but around the world.

Pointing to the WhatsApp instant messaging service as an example, Abdulkerimov said people have “been used to receiving information immediately but [until now] money was not playing that game.” Meeting this expectation in the money movement space is a “game changer” in terms of costs and service speed, he added.

Building a Simple and Inclusive Product

Beyond the ability to connect billions of card credentials in an instant, Salazar pointed to the value-added services offered by Visa Direct, such as security measures as essential to redefining the fragmented global money transfer landscape.

“There are multiple intervening partners but there is not a single standard, a single economic model or a single user experience for consumers on both ends. In this case, however, it’s very predictable, it’s very transparent and it’s in real time,” Salazar pointed out.

And while the deal aims to leverage the power of card networks instead of traditional money transfer channels to bridge the gap for countries underserved by legacy banking infrastructures, Abdulkerimov said the focus remains on the core issues customers face when sending money across borders: time, cost, and barriers.

“It’s not about opposing traditional systems and what we’re doing with sending money to cards. Instead, it’s about building a simple and inclusive product that addresses a broader consumer segment,” he explained.

Finally, Abdulkerimov said the Paysend-Visa collaboration goes beyond making money transfers to cards instant and simple to adopting technologies that foster financial inclusion for millions of unbanked and underserved individuals, particularly those in cash-heavy economies.

“We’re working together to ensure that we’re not just focusing on those who already have a card or a bank account, but also those who are not yet benefiting from the financial system,” Abdulkerimov said.