Visa and Swift unveiled a strategic collaboration designed to streamline international business-to-business (B2B) payments. This partnership seeks to bolster the connectivity between their expansive networks, ultimately benefiting many small businesses that regularly transact on a global scale.
For small business owners, the current landscape of international payments can be riddled with challenges, including unexpected delays, a lack of transparency in transaction processes, and even payment errors. The recent collaboration between Visa and Swift intends to address and mitigate these pain points directly.
Chris Newkirk, Global Head of Commercial & money Movement Solutions at Visa, illuminated many businesses’ struggles: “Many businesses continue to face complexities while making cross-border payments that hurt their bottom lines. By working with Swift, Visa will help enhance our financial institution clients’ offerings to their corporate customers. The collaboration will help provide clarity and enhanced data while removing errors before, during and after the payment.”
The joint effort, announced with great anticipation at the annual Sibos conference in Toronto, hinges on Visa implementing innovative capabilities crafted by Swift. One such feature is the Swift Payment Pre-validation. This tool ensures that potential errors in Visa B2B Connect payments are caught and rectified before the payment process begins. An additional focus for both financial entities will be to bolster end-to-end transaction visibility, leveraging Swift’s high-speed GPI capabilities and tracking data.
Furthermore, small businesses can expect more fluid and seamless payments as Visa and Swift are moving to strengthen their connection through Alliance Cloud. This cutting-edge cloud-based channel will offer more routing options for financial institutions, thus providing real-time status updates to their business customers.
Thierry Chilosi, Chief Strategy Officer at Swift, commented on the heightened expectations in the realm of international payments. “Expectations for international payments are rising as the complexity of moving money across borders is intensifying. Our work with Visa helps address both challenges, providing new connectivity and capabilities in the backend to drive exciting innovation in front-end customer channels. It’s part of our strategic focus on payment optionality, enabling value in all forms to move seamlessly around the world with strong peace of mind on security and trust and, through collaborations like this, consistently elevating the customer experience,” said Chilosi.
But what does this mean for the small business owner?
For starters, a more interconnected financial ecosystem translates to faster, more reliable, and transparent cross-border transactions. Businesses can now benefit from Swift’s unparalleled infrastructure and Visa’s B2B Connect’s advanced security and efficiency, ensuring that international transactions are as hassle-free as possible.
Since its inception in October 2022, Visa B2B Connect has already made significant strides, garnering over 30 bank clients from more than 20 countries and routing payments to a whopping 90 countries globally. Such expansive reach is indicative of the platform’s promise to redefine standards for efficiency, transparency, and security in international B2B payments.
With Visa’s commitment to connecting the world through an innovative, secure payments network and Swift’s dedication to secure financial messaging services, this collaboration signals a promising future for small businesses engaged in the global market.
For small business owners seeking to thrive in a world where globalization is key, this partnership between Visa and Swift is not just news—it’s a beacon of progress, promising a future of enhanced cross-border transactional experiences.
Image: Visa, Swift
