Cross-border payments startup Thunes partners with Visa to add more than 1.5 billion new endpoints to the Visa Direct digital payments network. This will allow many more consumers and small businesses to send money to markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Based in Singapore and San Francisco, Tunes is backed by investors including Insight Partners, GGV and Checkout.com and has raised $130 million in funding to date. Its payment infrastructure clients include Uber Eats, Grab, MoneyGram, Remitly and Western Union, and it currently handles more than 180 million transactions annually in 130 countries.
One of Thunes’ focuses is emerging markets, where there are many unbanked people. Many use digital wallets as an alternative to traditional financial services, as they can top up funds without the need for a bank account or credit card.
CEO Peter de Caluwe told TechCrunch that Thunes was created to bridge gaps in the payments market’s slow traditional banking infrastructure. In the year Citing studies that show half of the world’s population will use mobile wallets by 2025, Tunis believes adoption will happen much faster than that, with the network reaching 2.7 billion mobile wallet users by 2022.
“Digital wallets are one of the fastest-growing financial tools for many small businesses and unbanked individuals in emerging markets,” said De Kaluwe. “Three billion people around the world are still left out or underserved by the formal economy. For these unbanked individuals in emerging markets, digital wallets are becoming the first entry point into the financial system.”
The partnership means approximately 14,900 Visa customer financial institutions will be able to integrate wallet delivery services for customers, retailers and SMEs through Visa Direct. The Visa network is now connected to the Thunes B2B platform, which means Visa Direct can reach more than 1.5 billion new endpoints (7 billion in total) and all 78 digital wallet providers will get a new wallet integrated with Thunes. Ability.
Some examples of how Thunes software and APIs are being used include connecting Paypal and Paypal Xoom payments to top mobile wallets in Asia and Africa, including Bangladesh, Indonesia and Kenya, and facilitating payments to digital remittance companies such as Remitly, World Remit and Moneygram. Take Thunes’ platform to localize payments, which allows it to accept mobile payment options and offer on-demand payments to drivers, giving it an edge over Uber.
