Alipay in the X-Border Blockchain Pact

The new year has emerged with a series of cross-border payment pacts, made through blockchain and other means.

In Pakistan, as reported by Coindesk, Telenor Microfinance Bank and remittance company Valyou Sdn Bhd (a subsidiary of Telenor) launched a payment platform based on Alipay's blockchain offers.

Blockchain technology, in turn, was developed by Ant Financial Services Group. The site said the pact is one that seems to rationalize remittances between Pakistan and Malaysia.

"With around $ 20 billion a year, international remittances are important from the point of view of overall macroeconomic stability and their positive impact on improving the lives of millions of families," said Tariq Bajwa, Governor of the Bank of State of Pakistan. "Home remittances have contributed to over 6% of GDP, accounting for over 50% of our trade deficit".

In other cross-border blockchain news, Ripple said that 13 additional finance companies signed on RippleNet, a payment network offered by the company. The new members include Euro Exim Bank, SendFriend, JNFX, FTCS, Ahli Bank of Kuwait, Transpaygo, BFC Bahrain and others. The count of companies that have joined RippleNet now amounts to more than 200. Five of the 13 recently announced participants are using the digital resource known as XRP (which in turn belongs to 60% of Ripple) to obtain liquidity as required. This, the company hopes, will help avoid pre-financing requirements that are part of international transactions. For companies that do not use XRP, said Ripple, APIs can help speed up payments and reduce costs while increasing transparency.

"In 2018, almost 100 financial institutions joined RippleNet and we now subscribe two – sometimes three – new customers a week – we also saw a 350% increase last year for customers who send payments in real time and we are starting to see more customers turn-over and take advantage of XRP for on-demand liquidity, "said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple. "At the end of the day, our goal is to ensure that our customers can offer excellent and efficient cross-border payment experiences for their customers wherever they are in the world."

Ripple news arrives just days after the National Bank of Kuwait became the first financial institution to implement ACI Worldwide's Swift Global Payment Innovation technology. As has been reported, the GPI allows cross-border real-time payments and, through ACI, allows 300 member banks to send cross-border payments in real time.

Separately, an American subsidiary of Bancorp declared this week that it became the first payment provider dedicated to connecting to U.K's Faster Payments service. As has been reported, the payment scheme is 365/24/7 to complete payments in real time.

Elavon said that previously only the major banks, among other companies, had access to the Faster Payments service; now – in collaboration with the Bank of England and HM Treasury – the service has been extended to new markets and players. Elavon, the company said, can now process up to £ 250,000 per transaction. The count is now 25 financial companies that participate in faster payments.

Here in the US, serving the integrated payment needs of governments and vertical public services, Paya said it purchased First Billing Services for almost $ 58 million. The combined entity will help independent sales organizations (ISOs), independent software vendors (ISVs) and other businesses to lay the technical foundation for end-users to pay bills for government services via check, interactive voice response , phone or even text messages.

"This is a one-stop shop and allows integrations with different platforms [utilities] to get these offers from one end to the other, "he added, where software and processing capabilities are outsourced, as Paya president Greg Cohen told PYMNTS. Outsourcing to a third-party vendor parties, Cohen said, also helps governments improve operational efficiency by improving collection efforts and reducing the time it takes to convert cash credits.

Consider the fact, as noted by First Billing on its site, that over 50% of calls to their customers is to request information on invoices. These calls last an average of three minutes and two of these minutes are related to the payments themselves. The first billing covers that part of the call, he said, which in turn helps staff productivity. The first billing will continue to work under its existing brand, the companies said on Tuesday.