Standard Chartered & Visa to enhance cross-border payments

By Gloria Mathias

Standard Chartered has announced that it has joined Visa B2B Connect, a multilateral payment network that enables faster and frictionless account-to-account cross-border payments for its corporate clients.

Launching first for clients of Standard Chartered Singapore with more entities to be added to the network in the months ahead, the solution will expand and enhance the Bank’s existing suite of payment solutions with a focus on facilitating faster and more cost-effective B2B transactions across borders.

Through application programming interface (API) connectivity between Standard Chartered and the Visa B2B Connect network, transactions will be routed directly to Visa for further processing, removing multiple intermediaries and the associated costs and delays. These capabilities help meet the needs of corporates of all sizes who are actively looking at ways to achieve quicker, more secure, and more efficient cross-border payments.

Philip Panaino, Global Head of Cash at Standard Chartered, said, “We are delighted to build on our existing partnership with Visa to deliver this innovative and future-ready cross-border payment network offering to our clients. We will join as a participant bank and as Visa’s new settlement partner for a set of currencies. Our engagement in the Visa B2B Connect network – both as a participant and as a settlement bank – is yet another way we are delivering value to the broader ecosystem as we support corporates on their payments journey.”

“Visa is committed to modernising cross-border payments around the world and the collaboration with Standard Chartered will extend our network even further,” said Ben Ellis, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Visa B2B Connect at Visa. “We are excited to be partnering with Standard Chartered to simplify and speed up transactions for their clients, cutting out middlemen and reducing costs for a more efficient and secure way to move money globally.”

The Bank will also act as one of Visa’s settlement partners within the network, and in this capacity, facilitates payment flows, including settlement accounts, funds movement and FX capabilities for Visa.