Wise brushes off political change; Ingenico pushes crypto

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The election of Donald Trump as president and a Republican-led U.S. Senate projects an isolationist posture toward international commerce, threatening cross-border payments volume. London-based Wise, which processes international digital payments as a core part of its business, is not worried. 

"There's nothing here that concerns us from that perspective," said Martin Adams, director of finance, financial planning, analysis and investor relations for Wise, in an interview after the company released its first half earnings for 2024. "The U.S. is a focus for our business but we are geographically diversified and are very well spread out," Adams said.

President Trump's tariffs on certain goods from China and other countries sparked a trade war that hindered payments volume for some fintechs with cross-border products. As a 2024 candidate, he promised to issue broader tariffs of up to 20% in a future administration. That could boost yearly costs to U.S. consumers by about $2,600, hurting purchasing power, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 

Trump in his first term also threatened to ban remittances as a way to force Mexico to pay for a wall at the southern U.S. border. While Wise is active in the U.S., it believes it has a presence in enough countries to navigate any change in local policy. Europe is a third of Wise's business, 20% is from North America with the rest spread among other regions. "We have a large and diversified base. If there are any changes in any one market, there are opportunities elsewhere," Adams said.

The firm, which was originally known as TransferWise, reported strong earnings. For the six months ended Sept. 30, Wise reported revenue of about $791 million, up 19% from the October 2023 to March 2024 period. Profits were about $279 million, up 55%. About 11.4 million people and businesses used Wise in the past six months, up 25% year over year. 

Wise this week launched its sixth live direct connection to a domestic payments system, adding the Philippines. It has received regulatory approval to integrate with Brazil and Japan. The company also upgraded its internal technology, enabling 64% of its transactions to be completed instantly. "Adding these connections is fundamental to what we're doing to move money around the world at lower costs," Adams said. 

In a research note, Peel Hunt said, "Wise's rating is not expensive … and is worth a second look from investors." —John Adams

Gabby Jones/Bloomberg

Affirm expands to the United Kingdom

Buy now/pay later company Affirm has introduced its lending products to the United Kingdom.

The company will offer both its interest-free and interest-bearing payment options through flight-booking website Alternative Airlines and payment processing company Fexco, according to Affirm. Fexco clients with a U.K. presence will also be able to integrate Affirm's point-of-sale financing into checkout, a platform play that has become attractive to many payment fintechs.

Ruth Spratt, vice president and country manager, will lead the company's efforts in the U.K. Spratt has more than 25 years of experience in payments, media and travel, and was the U.K. country manager of buy now/pay later firm Zip Co., where she was also on the board of directors. Affirm has 30 employees in the U.K., with plans to add more this year. 

The move comes as "U.K. expansion is all the rage with U.S. fintech," said Simon Taylor, head of strategy and content at Sardine, in a LinkedIn post. "Robinhood and Affirm have both launched recently, and Square is hiring and expanding its product team dramatically too."

Affirm's launch will compete with rival Klarna, which counts the United Kingdom as one of its largest and most lucrative markets, according to Taylor. —Joey Pizzolato

Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Ingenico revs up crypto payments

Ingenico and Crypto.com have partnered to sell payments and merchant services to the French payment company's clients.

Merchants can accept crypto for payments and exchange it for local currency such as euros, pounds, or Australian or U.S. dollars. Ingenico has added the crypto option to its new merchant wallet, which is attached to Android-enabled Ingenico payment terminals. Crypto will appear alongside other payment options at the point of sale.

Other features include offering payment-related rewards for using Crypto.com Pay at Ingenico merchants.

The partnership is trying to bring more consumers and merchants into cryptocurrency payments. The digital currency has been used primarily for investing and trading, with payments lagging as a use case, partly due to concerns about security, volatility of cryptocurrency or the existence of successful mature payment options such as cards. Payment companies such as Block and PayPal have supported cryptocurrencies for investing, in part to build a user base for payments in their consumer and merchant networks. —John Adams 

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Mastercard makes a play for Asian digital wallets

The card network this week launched Mastercard Pay Local, a service that enables the card network's consumers to link their cards to a local digital wallet, with an initial focus on Asia.

Digital wallets at launch include DANA in Indonesia, Touch n' Go in Malaysia, Bakong in Cambodia and LankaPay in Sri Lanka. The wallets cover a total of 35 million merchants.

The card brand has existing partnerships with digital wallets Alipay and Weixin Pay in China and Octopus in Hong Kong; and digital wallets in other regions. These wallets accept Mastercard for payments, and Pay Local will enable foreign travelers to access the local wallets without having to set up a distinct account.

Mastercard will also recruit partners for Pay Local in markets where digital wallets have a high usage for small everyday payments, such as Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in an attempt to reach traveling consumers who are making routing payments in what is for them a foreign country.

China's Alipay and WeChat  have used a similar strategy for years by building merchant networks outside of China to reach Chinese consumers traveling or living abroad.—John Adams

Anthony Kwan/Photographer: Anthony Kwan/Bloom

Airwallex looks to secure new funding

Payments fintech Airwallex is eyeing $200 million in a new funding round to finance its growth. 

The company, which was founded in Melbourne, Australia, in 2015, is looking to secure fresh funding before year-end, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed sources. The additional injection of capital could push the fintech's valuation to $6 billion, up from its $5.6 billion valuation in November 2022. 

The company has been on a growth trajectory, expanding into China, Japan, Mexico and Brazil, and has been mulling a potential initial public offering in 2026, according to reports. —Joey Pizzolato

Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

Confirmation of Payee hits 99% of transactions through Faster Payments

The United Kingdom's Payment Systems Regulator said last week that its fraud prevention tool, called Confirmation of Payee, reached 99% of all transactions made through its Faster Payments and Clearing House Automated Payments System with the addition of hundreds of new firms. 

Confirmation of Payee verifies the name of an account holder against the payee's bank records to confirm that a payment is going to the intended recipient.

"Fraud is a devastating crime, and as fraudsters become increasingly sophisticated, people continue to lose life-changing amounts of money," said Kate Fitzgerald, head of policy at the Payment Systems Regulator, in an Oct. 31 column. "In just the first half of 2024, over £213 million was stolen through Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud, where victims are tricked into sending money to criminals posing as legitimate payees." 

More than 300 financial institutions use Confirmation of Payee, according to the PSR. —Joey Pizzolato

Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Visa extends digital pay tech in Asia Pacific

Visa has partnered with QR code firms to support international payments in China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Merchants in these countries can use firms that enable contactless QR payments to connect to Visa's payment-processing system.

The program will also enable consumers in these countries to use digital wallets and other payment apps to pay at QR code merchants either in their home markets or abroad.

Near Field Communication and QR codes are the two main technology types that support mobile payments and are considered key innovations to bring faster processing to more markets. —John Adams 

Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

NatWest launches mobile virtual cards for corporations

United Kingdom-based NatWest is leveraging Mastercard's technology to roll out a new virtual card payment tool for business expenses that it is calling Approval2Buy. 

The virtual cards can be spun up and added to mobile wallets. Businesses can set a budget or time limit and control where employees can use the card through merchant or geographic location controls. 

"The introduction of mobile virtual cards represents a step change in the increasingly digitalised corporate payments landscape," said Simon Forbes, president of UK and Ireland at Mastercard, in a statement. "It will simplify, speed up, and bring flexibility to what has long been a cumbersome process for many businesses and their employees." —Joey Pizzolato