Visa, Thunes launch survey on cross-border payment interoperability

Even if the majority of participants were confident in their company’s cross-border payment capabilities, the survey highlighted that decision-makers come across several challenges, including lost business from not being able to integrate with emerging payment methods. According to Thunes’ officials, the report underlines the mixed opinions of payment providers, with them being sure of their capabilities and features but having to face integration complications, specifically with digital wallets. In a bid to mitigate this, Thunes focuses on directly integrating with three billion digital wallets globally and enabling them to offer services similar to banks and financially including the unbanked or underbanked population.

Furthermore, representatives from Visa stated that payment interoperability continues to be a significant challenge for meeting the requirements of individuals and businesses to move money domestically and internationally securely and conveniently. Visa is committed to allowing money movement from any endpoint and developing a system that suits the needs of the current financial landscape.

Thunes and Visa included 233 Europe-based payment representatives located in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain, with them analysing the current state of cross-border payment systems and their interoperability. In addition, prior to the survey, Visa, Thunes, and The Paypers released a whitepaper on the role of payment interoperability in the digital economy.

Some of the key findings of the research include:

• 97% of respondents are confident that their systems are completely or mostly compatible with the method in which international recipients receive funds, while 40% stated losing business due to cross-border payment issues;

• Respondents underlined substantial differences in the convenience of issuing payments to endpoints, with bank accounts being ranked the easiest way to provide payments, closely followed by global cards, e-wallets, cash, and local card schemes;

• Digital wallets were ranked as the most elusive endpoint for cross-border payments;

• Respondents labelled security concerns and payment tracking and processing speed as the main difficulties in integrating payment systems;

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is projected to have a significant role in enhancing payment processes, fraud detection, risk management, and customer support. Also, blockchain technology and digital currencies show the potential to enable secure and low-cost transactions.