Mastercard has launched an ambitious new service to speed up commercial cross-border payments in light of surging international trade flows.
The new offering, dubbed Mastercard Move Commercial Payments, promises to deliver near real-time transactions around the clock.
Unveiled at the 2024 Sibos conference in Beijing, the service comes as cross-border payment volumes continue to grow at double-digit rates, according to McKinsey research, driven by increasingly complex global supply chains and international business operations.
“We’re bringing domestic payment norms to the international arena,” said Alan Marquard, Head of Transfer Solutions at Mastercard. “This represents a step-change in how businesses can manage their cross-border transactions.”
Traditional systems have long been criticised for their opacity, unpredictable timing, and complex fee structures.
The Mastercard solution, which maintains compatibility with the existing Swift messaging infrastructure, offers banks enhanced liquidity management options whilst preserving their foreign exchange and deposit-related revenue streams. A notable feature is its multilateral arrangement, designed to minimise counterparty risk and ensure near-instantaneous transaction clearing.
Early trials of the system are already underway in Britain, with Lloyds Banking Group and UBS participating in a pilot programme that utilises Fnality as the settlement venue, with the system seeing success at this stage.
Mastercard’s new offering forms part of its broader Move portfolio, which encompasses both domestic and international money transfer capabilities. The company says the platform will enable banks to expand their payment corridors and add currencies with minimal additional investment, whilst maintaining their existing correspondent banking relationships.
Fintechs have been making inroads in the increasingly competitive cross-border payments market, so Mastercard Move Commercial Payments could strengthen and enhance Mastercard’s competitiveness.
