Visa and Paysend Facilitate Cross-Border Money Transfers for North American Merchants

Visa and Paysend are now offering merchants in North America a way to offer real-time, transparent cross-border money transfers.

This partnership will provide Visa merchants and collaborators across North America with access to Paysend’s Enterprise API, which enables the integration of Paysend’s payment capabilities into businesses’ own systems, the companies said in a Tuesday (Oct. 21) press release.

This integration marks an expansion of an existing partnership in which Visa and Paysend work together to allow customers to send money in real time to Visa debit cards in more than 100 markets, according to the release. The companies have offered that capability since 2023.

“With this next phase, we are addressing common challenges in cross-border payments and helping to set new expectations for speed, transparency and convenience in the industry,” Justin Zhao, head of global partnerships and sales at Visa Direct, said in the release.

Rick Castello, head of North American sales at Paysend, said in the release that the collaboration is “reshaping the future of cross-border money movement.”

“By making our Enterprise API available through Visa’s network, we’re bringing instant, secure payments to even more people and businesses,” Castello said.

PYMNTS reported in September 2023 that Visa and Paysend partnered to bring to cross-border payments the same kinds of improvements that had streamlined and enhanced domestic money transfers.

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 that connects 3.4 billion card credentials worldwide in seconds.

Visa Direct also offers value-added services like security measures that are essential for global money transfers.

Paysend said in January that it reached the milestone of 10 million customers for its cross-border money transfers seven years after its launch in 2017. The company added that its app had over 15 million downloads and that its service connected people across 190 countries.

“From sending love to family members to supporting friends in need, every transfer matters,” the company said at the time in a press release. “That’s why we’ve worked hard to ensure low, fixed fees, competitive exchange rates and top-tier security for all our users.”