Thunes, a prominent cross-border payments company, has announced an expanded strategic collaboration with Visa, a global leader in digital payments, to facilitate new endpoints in key markets across Asia and Africa.

This enhanced collaboration entails Visa leveraging Thunes’ extensive network to facilitate payments to over 108 digital wallet types and bank accounts in countries across Africa and Asia, including Kenya, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Additionally, Thunes is integrating Visa Direct’s push-to-card capability, allowing for payouts to eligible Visa cards and accounts across more than 190 countries and territories.

Visa’s projections indicate a $200 trillion market for global money movement flows, encompassing various sectors such as B2B, B2C, P2P, and government disbursements. In line with its growth strategy, Visa is expanding its partnership with Thunes to enable payouts to digital wallets and bank accounts, recognizing them as integral components of its growth plan.

Digital wallets have emerged as a convenient, rapid, and secure payment method that is rapidly gaining popularity worldwide. It is anticipated that more than 60% of the global population will be using digital wallets by 2026. Consequently, numerous banks, including CIBC in Canada, are collaborating with Visa to incorporate cross-border payout capabilities into digital wallets. Financial institutions increasingly view mobile wallet interoperability as a crucial means to optimize payments for both consumers and business customers.

This latest initiative builds upon the existing collaborations between Visa and Thunes. The partnership initially commenced in October 2022 to extend Visa Direct’s reach to 1.5 billion wallets, and Thunes announced its Series C extension round in July 2023, with Visa serving as a key investor.

Chris Newkirk, Global Head of Commercial & Money Movement Solutions at Visa, emphasized the importance of broadening the payment ecosystem to enable seamless money movement, stating, “At Visa, we’re building the infrastructure to enable our partners to move money from any endpoint to any endpoint, seamlessly. Broadening both our reach and number of endpoints — more than 8.5 billion today — is crucial to achieving that goal. Together with Thunes, we’re broadening the payment ecosystem by connecting to bank accounts, cards, and wallets, ultimately bringing more streamlined payout capabilities to our joint clients.”

Floris de Kort, CEO of Thunes, highlighted the strategic significance of the partnership with Visa in enabling cross-border payments at scale, stating, “Our partnership with Visa is more than just a financial investment. We’re engaging with each other’s networks, corridors, and payment methods as payments continue to digitize. There is a crystal clear, untapped opportunity for B2B cross-border payments at scale, and Thunes is delighted to work with Visa to enable these new payment flows.”