Visa and UnionPay Partner on Cross-Border Money Movement Into Chinese Mainland

Visa clients around the world will soon be able to send cross-border remittances and business-to-consumer payouts to more than 95% of UnionPay debit cardholders in mainland China.

This offering will be enabled by a new agreement between the two companies, and it is expected to be launched during the first quarter, they said in a Tuesday (Feb. 3) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

Under the agreement, Visa Direct’s card network will be connected to UnionPay International’s MoneyExpress platform, enabling cross-border money movement into mainland China through Visa Direct, according to the release.

This connection will support creator and freelancer payouts, contractor disbursements, reimbursements, family remittances and other cross-border use cases, per the release.

“By expanding Visa Direct’s reach through UnionPay International, we’re shrinking the world again — not through tests or theory, but through real, critical infrastructure operating at massive scale, speed and reliability,” Vira Platonova, global head of Visa Direct, said in the release.

Larry Wang, CEO of UnionPay International, said in the release that the collaboration “will allow more overseas users to enjoy low-cost, high-efficiency, and trustworthy cross-border remittance services, while delivering business growth to partners at home and abroad and supporting the development of a broader, more efficient global cross-border remittance service ecosystem.”

Visa reported Jan. 29 that during the company’s fiscal first quarter, Visa Direct transactions rose 23% year over year to 3.7 billion, supporting both domestic and cross-border flows. Commercial and Money Movement Solutions revenue grew 20% in constant dollars, supported by 10% commercial payments volume growth.

During the call, management positioned Visa Direct alongside agentic commerce and B2B flows as the company’s next growth lanes.

In some other recently announced collaborations, MassPay integrated Visa Direct with its global payout orchestration platform to enable faster payouts to cards, bank accounts and digital wallets; Lumanu integrated Visa Direct to enables its payments and compliance platform for the global creative economy to deliver real-time payments to creators and contractors in more than 195 countries and territories; and Nuvei integrated Visa Direct for Account into its global payments platform to let merchants send funds directly to consumers’ and workers’ bank accounts in eligible countries.