PaidBy and Mastercard partner to scale cross-border A2A payments

The partnership brings together Mastercard's global Open Finance connectivity and network infrastructure with PaidBy's proprietary orchestration layer, cross-border settlement capabilities, dynamic currency processing, and merchant payout network. The combined framework is intended to address a structural gap in the current Open Banking landscape: while A2A payments have gained traction domestically in several markets, the infrastructure required to operate them at scale across borders has remained fragmented.

Addressing the domestic ceiling of Open Banking

Open Banking payment volumes have grown steadily across Europe and the UK, but cross-border interoperability has lagged behind. Merchants operating across multiple markets have typically been required to maintain separate domestic A2A integrations, increasing operational complexity and limiting scalability. With this in mind, the partnership seeks to consolidate that model by enabling consumers to initiate payments directly from their bank accounts in their home currency, while merchants receive settlement in their preferred local currency, with next-business-day settlement and simplified reconciliation across markets.

Nikogiannis (John) Karantzis, CEO, ISX Financial Plc, described the current state of Open Banking and A2A payments as predominantly domestic, with growing demand for cross-border functionality: 'Open Banking and A2A payments have been predominantly focused on domestic payments to date. There is a demand to make that cross-border, we are already seeing that with some initial customers going UK to Europe. We are now able to settle in around 100 countries next business day using the PaidBy network. Bringing Mastercard to the table allows us to integrate other Mastercard products, Mastercard Send, Mastercard Move, their own FX capabilities, and network capabilities. It is a good fusion of networks, product, trust, capability, and operations.'

On the long-term trajectory of A2A payments

On the potential for A2A to evolve beyond domestic use cases, Nikogiannis (John) Karantzis noted that adoption has been accompanied by limitations: 'Open Banking has had adoption, but with that adoption has also come some disappointment in terms of what it can do. Its present state of being localised means it has only limited applicability. By taking it cross-border and bringing it as another debit rail, an alternative to other debit systems, which might include SWIFT or debit cards, it becomes a viable commercial payment method that merchants can adopt at a fair cost.'

The official also drew a distinction between the partnership's approach and the broader industry's focus on cost alone: 'The focus has been on cost, not on delivering a product. We are looking to deliver a product that will compete on a competitive price basis, but actually deliver things like refund management, dispute management, next-day settlement, reliability, and being enterprise-grade rather than just a curiosity.'

On Mastercard's posture towards A2A, the official noted: 'Mastercard has invested quite heavily into A2A and, unlike some of its competitors, is a lot more receptive to new technologies and looks to support them as they emerge. From our perspective, we have seen nothing but an earnest approach to making this succeed, with no secondary agenda other than getting another commercial payment rail up and running that will work for the customer.'

The initial phase of the collaboration will extend PaidBy's real-time A2A capabilities across Europe and the UK, with further geographic expansion implied as part of the longer-term roadmap.

PaidBy is built on Xryma's regulated `banktech` infrastructure, which combines payment initiation, multi-currency processing, and real-time settlement into a single platform serving businesses across multiple jurisdictions. Through the partnership, PaidBy will integrate Mastercard's Open Finance capabilities to support enterprise-grade payment initiation and high-volume transaction processing.

Positioning within Mastercard's Open Finance strategy

According to the official press release, for Mastercard, the partnership forms part of a broader Open Finance strategy to build a globally connected payment ecosystem. The collaboration positions cross-border A2A payments as a complement (rather than solely a domestic alternative) to traditional card and payment rails, targeting enterprise merchants, payment service providers, and platforms. Moreover, the two companies have also indicated they will explore additional value-added services to extend A2A connectivity into the wider digital commerce landscape, though no specific services or timelines were disclosed.

In an exclusive comment for The Paypers, when asked about the ambitions behind this product, Ian White, Senior Vice President, Open Banking Europe at Mastercard, noted that the partnership aims to address the operational complexity that arises when extending A2A payments across borders: 'Today we see a lot of solutions delivering A2A payments domestically. Where things get hard is when they try to extend that to cross-border, considering not only the payment initiation, that's relatively straightforward, but the FX, the settlements, the refunds, and other operational processes. These get much more complex when you start going across borders.'

On the rationale for combining Mastercard's infrastructure with PaidBy's capabilities, the official added: 'This partnership combines the Mastercard reach from a connectivity perspective, but also the trust layer that we have from our global network, with PaidBy's orchestration and settlement capabilities, to deliver something end-to-end that works domestically, of course, but opens up that cross-border use case as well.'

Targeting enterprise merchants

Addressing Mastercard's broader strategic positioning, Ian White pointed to two pillars underpinning the partnership: 'We've been enabling multi-rail payments — cards and other rails — for a long time. And then, anchored on the data possibilities through access to account data and other attributes like balances, this is very much in line with using data, payments or otherwise, to deliver data-driven services.', adding that'We don't see one rail versus the other displacement. We see this as another rail that can deliver good outcomes for customers in specific circumstances.'

The announcement comes as demand grows among businesses for faster settlement cycles, reduced transaction friction, and greater cash flow visibility in cross-border operations, factors that have led many merchants to reconsider their reliance on legacy payment infrastructure for international transactions.