Accept cross-border payments in real-time with Visa Direct

In a world where consumers and businesses alike demand smooth and fast payments, the slow transfer of funds can be considered as friction. If you’re keen on implementing a cross-border solution that allows access to funds in 30 minutes or under, look no further than Visa Direct.

What is Visa Direct?

Visa Direct is a payments platform enabling near real-time fund transferring domestically and internationally. Visa Direct enables person-to-person (P2P), business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) payments. Backed by one of the major card schemes, the platform facilitates fast debit or prepaid card payments on the Visa network, with the funds reaching the recipient’s account within 30 minutes. Although the feature applies to certain Visa cards and acceptance depends on the cardholder’s issuer, this capability is ever-growing. For the 2019 fiscal year, Visa Direct facilitated 2 billion transactions, with P2P payments being a significant part of that volume, especially in the US. Essentially, Visa Direct is an add-on capability that payment service providers can offer to merchants who want to scale their business and explore fast cross-border payments. As of December 2019, Visa Direct saw transactions initiated in 90 countries and sent to 170 countries, positioning the capability as a key driver of frictionless international payments. (We've prepared a relevant video about cross-border payments you can find here).

Industries that can benefit from Visa Direct

Businesses across sectors can leverage Visa Direct to offer fast payments for their customers and improve their payments’ efficiency. A wide range of industries can benefit from these robust pay-out solutions. iGaming businesses can provide near-instant pay-outs for bet winnings to players, insurance companies can easily disburse their customers and travel companies can transfer funds to vendors or disbursements to customers in various regions and currencies.

How does it work?

Transactions with Visa Direct fall under two categories, money transfers or funds disbursements. Money transfers include the following capabilities:

• Account-to-account, when a sender transfers funds from one account (their bank account) to another account (their Visa debit card account)
• Person-to-person, when a sender transfers money to another person’s account
• Transferring funds from digital wallet to the cardholder’s Visa debit card account

The below diagram outlines the P2P payment flow with Visa Direct. Funds disbursements enable merchants to send funds to Visa debit or prepaid cards. Examples of funds disbursements include insurance claims, iGaming and gambling pay-outs, government disbursements (such as tax refunds), expense reimbursements, etc. emerchantpay’s versatile pay-out solutions give businesses more options to disburse funds to customers and partners seamlessly, quickly and across the globe. With these flexible payment options, your customers and partners will be able to receive near instant funds of refunds. This diagram explains the B2C payment flow.

Key benefits

Speed

The key benefit of Visa Direct is fast transfer of funds across regions and geographies. With near instant payments within the already broad Visa debit and prepaid card network, merchants who work with global PSP’s will be able to alleviate the burden of costly and time-consuming cross-border payments.

Customer experience

Customers and businesses transferring funds expect seamless and speedy transactions. In certain industries such as iGaming and insurance, customers expect fast pay-outs and this functionality is highly sought-after by companies looking to offer near real-time payments.

Cross-border payments

International payments can prove more time-consuming and costly when compared to their domestic counterparts. Visa Direct tackles this barrier with near-instant cross-border payments for individuals and businesses in over 200 countries.

The takeaway

As demand for fast cross-border payments grows, facilitating quicker pay-outs to consumers and disbursements to suppliers is a competitive advantage for businesses. Secure, seamless and reliable pay-outs which can be made by card, mobile wallet or bank transfer are at the heart of businesses looking to scale up, and Visa Direct is an ideal solution for efficient global payments. Get in touch today to find out how emerchantpay can help you accept a wide range of seamless payment methods.