Latest news with #instantpayments
Finextra
29-07-2025
- Business
- Finextra
CaixBank turns on instant cross-border mobile transfers
The European Payments Alliance (EuroPA) has hit a milestone in its efforts to bring instant cross-border payments to the continent with customers of Spain's CaixBank now able to send money to people in Portugal, Italy and Andorra via the Bizum mobile transfer scheme. 0 CaixaBank and imagin customers can now send and receive money to these countries without using the recipient's phone number, without needing bank cards or knowing the account number. EuroPA enables interoperability between Italy's Bancomat, Spanish scheme Bizum and Portugal's MB WAY, connecting more than 50 million users and 186 financial institutions from Italy, Portugal, Spain and Andorra. The scope of the alliance is expected to grow, with Poland and the Nordic countries slated to join in the coming months. Much like the European Payments Initiative, EuroPA is striving to provide a euro-owned payment system capable of wresting control away from US card brands. In June, the two schemes said they would investigate a joint offering that would combine their efforts to cover all use cases - person-to-person and commercial payments both online and in-store - across the markets of the participating services.
Finextra
18-07-2025
- Business
- Finextra
How Instant Payments Regulation Will Boost A2A Payments
Joining the FinextraTV studio at EBAday 2025 in Paris, Nuria Mohedas Yamayo, Director of Payments and Digital Banking, Cecabank and Julio Cesar Fernandez Ramos, Director of Business Development and Operations, Cecabank discussed the development of instant payments regulations and cash contingencies. Explaining how new regulations help to boost A2A payments and the growth of organisations as a whole, beyond just a smaller portion of banks, Yamayo and Ramos also emphasised the need for improved efficiencies and collaboration.
Finextra
15-07-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Highnote adds instant payment capabilities
Highnote, the unified platform for embedded finance and modern card issuance, today announced the launch of Instant Payments, a new capability that enables businesses to deliver near real-time payouts from Highnote-issued cards to eligible external debit and prepaid cards. 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. The solution is supported by Mastercard Move (Mastercard's portfolio of money transfer solutions) and Visa Direct, and is now available to all Highnote subscribers in the U.S. Developed in direct response to evolving customer needs, Instant Payments reflects Highnote's commitment to anticipating and delivering the tools modern businesses require to scale. While many platforms are still stitching together legacy infrastructure, Highnote has embedded this capability directly into its unified product platform, empowering subscribers with seamless, intelligent money movement from day one. With Instant Payments, businesses can push funds to debit and prepaid cards in the U.S., giving recipients faster access to their earnings while improving liquidity and payout operations. Use cases include gig worker payouts, employee tips, insurance reimbursements, merchant settlements, refunds, and more. 'Instant Payments reflects both where our subscribers are today and where the market is headed,' said Kin Kee, CTO of Highnote. 'By embedding on-demand disbursements directly into our issuing stack, we are helping businesses move money faster and more intelligently, all within a single, unified product experience.' Unlike providers that offer push-to-card services as standalone point solutions, Highnote delivers Instant Payments as part of a fully integrated platform that includes issuing, acquiring, credit, and a built-in general ledger. This unified foundation enables businesses to manage the full payment lifecycle, from funding to disbursement and reconciliation, through a single, flexible integration. 'At Visa, we're committed to providing seamless and secure money movement capabilities that help businesses and their customers access their funds in real-time,' said Yanilsa Gonzalez-Ore, SVP, Money Movement North America, Visa. 'By enabling real-time funds transfers through Highnote's platform, we're helping businesses leverage Visa's scale and robust security infrastructure to deliver faster and more reliable payouts.' 'Collaborating across the ecosystem is essential to ensure businesses can securely access critical funds in near real-time to keep their operations up and running,' said Stefany Bello, SVP, Digital Partnerships, Fintech & Enablers, Mastercard, North America. 'This marks an exciting new chapter in Mastercard's longstanding relationship with Highnote—one filled with opportunity to enable the seamless movement of money across key verticals and segments.' Instant Payments is the first release in Highnote's larger effort to unify outbound money movement through a single, programmable framework. Additional capabilities include support for ACH, wires, RTP, FedNow, wallet-based transfers, stablecoin funding, and other emerging rails—all accessible through one API, with intelligent routing based on speed, cost, and destination. To learn more about Instant Payments, contact the Highnote team or visit With Highnote Instant Payments, the company is still dedicated to giving fintech brands fast, flexible, and integrated payment options.
Coin Geek
15-07-2025
- Business
- Coin Geek
Namibia to launch a new payments system based on India's UPI
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Namibia will soon roll out a new payments system based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India's ultra-successful instant payments protocol. A year ago, the Bank of Namibia and the International Payments Limited (NIPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), signed a partnership to develop the new system. A week ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Southern African nation to seal the deal. After the visit, a statement by the External Affairs Ministry revealed that the rollout is scheduled for September. With three million residents, Namibia is one of Africa's smaller nations. The government has been pushing digital payments in recent years, and last year, the market hit $1.4 billion in value. Namibian businesses mainly rely on electronic funds transfers, a sector that recorded $68 billion in transaction value last year. UPI would significantly boost this rapidly growing market. Launched nine years ago, the system has become one of the world's largest payments infrastructures, with over 500 million active users. In May, it recorded ₹25.14 lakh crore ($294 billion) in monthly transaction value. Recently, it hit 650 million daily transactions, surpassing Visa (NASDAQ: V) as the world's leading real-time payments system. UPI surpasses Visa to become the world's leading real-time payment system, processing over 650 million transactions daily. Achieving this in just 9 years highlights its unmatched scale and momentum. From India to the world, UPI is leading the digital payment revolution! A recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) report revealed that UPI now processes over 18 billion transactions monthly, propelling India to the top of the global fast payments race. 'India now makes faster payments than any other country. At the same time, proxies for cash usage [such as ATM withdrawals] have fallen,' said the IMF. UPI has expanded beyond India and is now available in seven other countries, including Sri Lanka and Singapore. It has also expanded to the United Arab Emirates, enhancing local payments and boosting cross-border remittances between the two nations. The UAE-India corridor is one of the busiest for the Gulf nation; over seven million Indians visited the UAE last month, its largest group of international visitors. Back in Namibia, the new UPI-based system will play a significant role in trade between the two nations, surging from $3 million at the turn of the millennium to $600 million. Several Indian firms are pursuing business interests across Namibia in manufacturing, mining, and services. While Namibia is the only African country with a formal agreement to integrate UPI, others are also exploring partnerships. In his visit to Ghana earlier this month, PM Modi pledged his government's commitment to integrating the payments system in the West African nation. 'In the field of FinTech, India is ready to share its experience of UPI digital payments with Ghana,' he stated. Rwanda and Mozambique are also reportedly exploring similar partnerships. However, India's largest trade partner on the continent is South Africa, with bilateral trade volume hitting $19 billion in 2024. South Africa to launch its first digital ID system Elsewhere, the South African government is set to launch its first digital ID system to modernize government services. Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber revealed last week that his ministry has been working on a digital ID policy, which will soon be submitted to the Cabinet for approval before seeking public feedback. With a digital ID, South Africans will access government services easily on any smart device, curbing the need to visit government offices. It will be built atop the existing Smart ID framework, which relies on features such as biometric data to boost security, but which the minister says is five times more vulnerable to fraud than the new system. Schreiber added that the new digital ID will impact other sectors that rely on identity verification beyond government services. '[The] Digital ID will also enable users to remotely authenticate themselves, laying the foundation for a digital revolution not only for government services, but also for critical private sector services like banking, finance, and insurance,' he told lawmakers while presenting his department's budget. South Africa joins over a dozen other African countries pursuing digital IDs. Ethiopia recently set a target of 90 million digital IDs over the next two years, while Namibia intends to launch its new system next year. Nigeria and Zambia have also launched similar initiatives in partnership with the World Bank. Watch: Tech redefines how things are done—Africa is here for it
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Instant Payments Fintech Ivy Adds Circle's USDC, EURC Stablecoins
Ivy, a German startup focused on instant payments, said it added access to Circle's (CIRCL) USDC and EURC stablecoins to its always on-transaction rails. The Berlin-based fintech's platform allows crypto firms, payment service providers (PSPs) and e-commerce merchants to instantly make bank payments, settle funds to local collection accounts across Europe in multiple currencies, and seamlessly convert them into stablecoins, according to a Wednesday press release. The deal makes Ivy one of the first platforms offering instant bank payments to enable seamless settlement in USDC, the second-largest dollar stablecoin, and EURC, the largest euro stablecoin, the release said. Stablecoins, which became a convenient cornerstone of crypto trading partly thanks to the blockchain industry's tricky relationship with the banking world, are becoming a prominent payment mechanism across the internet. Circle, which this year completed an IPO in the U.S., has turned some of its focus to global payments and remittances with the introduction of the Circle Payments Network (CPN) in April. 'Real-time payment rails and stablecoins belong together,' said Ferdinand Dabitz, CEO and do-founder of Ivy. 'Hundreds of merchants are already building on Ivy's global API for instant bank payments. With native support of Circle's USDC and EURC, our customers can now instantly mint and burn USDC directly from fiat via a 24/7/365 settlement layer.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
