Visa Direct and Cross River empower Astra to process $100m GPV

By Gloria Methri

Astra, the automation platform for money movement has announced the success of its Instant Payment solution leveraging the Visa Direct network. Through a strategic partnership with Cross River Bank, which offers embedded financial solutions, Astra is offering a first-of-its-kind infrastructure that enables FinTech developers to process disbursements and payouts via debit card payment rails.

The partnership is already successfully processing more than $100 million of annualized gross payment volume (GPV) and 650,000 real-time transfers.

Gil Akos, CEO of Astra said, “Our customers continue to seek more instant payments capabilities so that they can offer a best-in-class product experience to their users. By adding new, flexible solutions through Visa Direct and our partnership with Cross River, developers can achieve more of their product goals through our scalable infrastructure.”

Traditionally, FinTech developers must choose a payment gateway to match the specific payment rail, which leads to multiple vendor integrations and added complexity. With this new solution developed by Astra, a payment can originate from any depository account and land directly as a credit on a debit card.

Cross River merges the offerings of API-driven technology with the expertise of core banking. The New Jersey-based financial institution is known for collaborating with partners to deliver innovative embedded financial solutions. The two companies have been partners since Astra launched a point-to-point debit API, which increased the speed of transfers and the accessibility of the debit card system for developers across the United States.

“We are always looking for new ways to creatively collaborate with our partners to develop innovative solutions that solve ineffectual pain points,” said Keith Vander Leest, Head of Payments at Cross River. “We are proud of our success with Astra, offering fintech developers streamlined and expanded embedded payment optionality that provides true scalability.”