Mobile Wallet Operators Form Council for Cross-Border Payments

In a significant move towards enhancing cross-border financial transactions, TerraPay, a leading money movement company, has launched the ‘Wallet Interoperability Council’, according to Finextra. This initiative brings together five major payment operators: Airtel, bKash, MPESA, Nequi, and Sama Money, aiming to facilitate seamless cross-border payments and expand the reach of mobile wallets.

The council’s founding members serve millions of users across diverse regions, including Bangladesh, Colombia, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda. The main goal is to enable merchant payments, international remittances, and other use cases by interconnecting these primarily domestic platforms.

Esther Masese Waititu, Chief Financial Services Officer at Safaricom, highlighted the importance of this initiative, stating, «This initiative is a significant and timely development. This collaborative effort with TerraPay is pioneering interoperability for global wallet payments and will accelerate our efforts in driving more value for our users for international money movement.»

TerraPay will provide the necessary technology infrastructure and manage the clearing and settlement processes for these wallet transactions. Ian Ferrao, CEO of Airtel Money, emphasized the value of this alliance, explaining, «Until now, the only option to enable our users to use their wallet internationally was to secure bilateral agreements, but we can’t sign hundreds of them efficiently, and that’s where this alliance brings value to all the participants.»

Studies predict that by 2028, over 7 billion wallets will process around $16 trillion in transactions. Enhancing cross-border capabilities is crucial to increasing transaction volumes and broadening the utility of wallet ecosystems globally.

Ambar Sur, CEO of TerraPay, underscored the milestone achieved with the formation of this council, saying, «TerraPay connects today more than 100 digital wallets, and we have been developing the technology to support interoperability since our inception. The formation of this council marks a significant milestone in our mission to drive the next wave of wallet evolution, bringing the local user experience to the global scale.»