Thunes and Visa are expanding digital wallet payments across Asia and Africa, deepening their existing collaboration, the companies have announced.
As part of the deal, Visa will tap into Thunes’ network to send payments to over 108 digital wallet types and bank accounts throughout key markets such as Kenya, the Philippines, Indonesia and Pakistan.
In addition, Thunes is implementing Visa Direct’s push-to-card capability, to enable payouts made to eligible Visa cards and accounts globally. Visa previously projected a $200 trillion market for global money movement flows and sees payouts to digital wallets and bank accounts as a core part of its plan to achieve that growth.
Digital wallets grow in popularity
Digital wallets are an easy-to-use, rapid, and secure payment method surging in popularity. More than 60% of the world’s population is expected to use them by 2026. As such, a growing number of banks, including CIBC in Canada, are working with Visa to add cross-border payout capabilities to digital wallets. Increasingly, these financial institutions see mobile wallet interoperability as a way to optimise payments to their consumers and business customers.
This latest initiative builds on existing collaborations between the two companies. Visa and Thunes first partnered 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 as a key investor.
“Together with Thunes, we’re broadening the payment ecosystem by connecting to bank accounts, cards, and wallets, ultimately bringing more streamlined payouts capabilities to our joint clients,” Chris Newkirk, Global Head of Commercial & Money Movement Solutions at Visa said.
Floris de Kort, CEO of Thunes added: “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.”
