Citi and Mastercard Partner on Cross-Border Payments to Debit Cards

Citi and Mastercard have teamed up to enable cross-border payments to Mastercard debit cards.

The companies are launching this capability in 14 receiving markets across Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and U.S. domestic transfers, and plan to expand it further in the future, they said in a Thursday (Oct. 10) press release.

“This collaboration builds on our longstanding relationship with Mastercard and leverages the strength of our global proprietary network combined with other leading digital wallet and card capabilities to enable our clients to make cross-border payments as though there are no borders, no currencies, no constraints,” Debopama Sen, head of payments at Citi Services, said in the release.

This collaboration leverages Citi’s WorldLink Payment Services and Mastercard Move’s money transfer capabilities, according to the release.

It enables Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) clients in 65 origination countries to send payments to consumers using their Mastercard debit card details, nearly instantly and with near 24/7 availability, the release said.

The solution is available to the bank’s clients in the corporate, financial institution, eCommerce and commercial sectors, and supports use cases like insurance payouts, airline refunds and compensation payouts, on-demand payments to freelance and gig economy workers, eCommerce payments to merchants and refunds to customers, per the release.

“By powering fast and secure cross-border transfers to Mastercard debit cards, our collaboration with Citi marks a significant milestone in bringing the ease and simplicity of domestic payments to the cross-border payment space,” Alan Marquard, head of transfer solutions at Mastercard, said in the release.

Seamless and efficient cross-border payments have become more important as businesses look abroad for new markets and customers, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence and Citi collaboration, “The Treasury Management Playbook: Spotlight on Cross-Border Payments.”

While traditional cross-border payment methods like wire transfers entail significant friction for businesses, including slow speeds, lack of transparency and high costs, newer solutions can provide benefits like simpler payment execution, streamlined compliance, and improved cash flow and liquidity management, the report found.

Mastercard Move’s services, which include cross-border functionality, touch 10 billion endpoints and cover over 95% of the world’s banked population across 280 countries, Marquard told PYMNTS in an interview posted in March.

Marquard added that Mastercard Move’s goal has been to “build a service that can either fill in for big players or be an end-to-end payment service offering effectively for smaller players.”