2023: Top five payments stories of the year
Capping off 2023, FinTech Futures takes a look back at some of the year’s top developments in the payments sphere.
This year saw no shortage of innovation in all things payments. From splitting bills and the growth of instant payments, to regulatory guardrails and stepped up protections for cash, the industry certainly has a lot to celebrate.
Here are five of the top payments developments across 2023.
Allianz Trade, Santander CIB and Two team up for corporate BNPL solution
Santander CIB partners Allianz and Two for corporate BNPL solution
Trade credit insurance provider Allianz Trade, B2B e-commerce payments platform Two and Santander Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) teamed up in January to offer the first global B2B buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution for corporates.
The solution enables corporates to offer business buyers deferred payments at checkout through a single Application Programming Interface (API).
Assessing credit requests through an API, Allianz is leveraging its “large and deep” database, which contains commercial, financial and strategic information about more than 80 million corporates worldwide, to help Santander CIB make financing decisions “on the spot”, while Two will run the whole process through its BNPL technology.
US Federal Reserve launches instant payments system FedNow
Appeasing the industry’s constant need for speed, the Federal Reserve finally unveiled its new interbank payment system in July.
Claiming to be able to process transactions between banks, credit unions and their customers instantly and at any time, FedNow operates in parallel with the Federal Reserve’s existing payment services, including Fedwire and FedACH.
The system debuted with 35 participating banks and credit unions, including the Bureau of the Fiscal Service operated by the US Department of the Treasury.
Speaking on the system’s launch this year, the US central bank said its aim is “to help make everyday payments over the coming years faster and more convenient”.
Visa and Swift collaborate to streamline cross-border payments
Visa and Swift join hands to streamline cross-border payments
At the annual Sibos conference in September, Visa and Swift announced a collaboration to streamline international B2B payments by strengthening connectivity between their networks.
Through the partnership, both firms aim to provide their customers with “more choice” when sending money globally, as well as improve the speed and transparency of transactions. To that end, Visa will deploy capabilities developed by Swift to help increase the “speed and certainty” of cross-border payments.
This includes Swift Payment Pre-validation to enable upfront checks of Visa B2B Connect payments, reducing unnecessary delays by catching potential errors before the payment is initiated.
NCR Corporation splits in two
Enterprise technology provider NCR Corporation, headquartered in Atlanta, USA, divided into NCR Voyix, its digital commerce business, and NCR Atleos, its ATM-as-a-Service business, in October.
Plans for the separation were first revealed in September 2022, creating two independent firms that could each pursue their own specific growth strategy.
NCR Voyix will leverage the company’s software “to continue transforming, connecting and running global retail, hospitality and digital banking technology platforms”, according to CEO Michael Hayford, while NCR Atleos will lead the provider’s push into ATM-as-a-Service.
The latter division has enjoyed some success in this pursuit this year, partnering with UnionBank in the Philippines in July and Florida-headquartered Seacoast Bank in August.
Europe readies for SEPA instant payments
European regulators agree rules for instant payments
Governing bodies in Europe came together in November to finalise new rules to increase the availability of instant payments for customers and businesses across the continent.
The rules mean that banks and payment service providers (PSPs) that offer standard credit transfers in euros must also start providing instant payments, but not at a price that exceeds the current charges of the standard service.
On top of this, they must also install a confirmation of payee function, whereby the beneficiary’s IBAN and name needs to be matched in order to execute the transaction.
Much like the original instant payments scheme it’s seeking to amend, the rules bring the continent closer than ever before to the total unification of its payments system.
