BNP Paribas partners Ant International to enhance cross-border payment solutions in Europe
French banking group BNP Paribas has entered into a strategic partnership with China’s Ant International to enhance its cross-border payment solutions for merchants and consumers in Europe.
BNP Paribas and Ant International execs signing their MoU in Zurich (Image: Ant International)
The pair formalised their partnership by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Zurich this month.
The agreement will see the Paris-headquartered group leverage the services of Alipay+, Ant Group’s cross-border digital payments solutions firm, to enable merchants who use the bank’s acquiring offering across Europe to accept payments from over 25 international mobile partners.
In addition, the bank is joining forces with Ant International to “explore innovations in tokenised deposits for global treasury management” through the Chinese company’s blockchain-powered Whale platform.
The collaboration will look to enhance the “efficiency and speed of global fund settlements through the use of tokenised deposits”.
Ant International adds that it will leverage BNP Paribas’ infrastructure to further develop its Whale platform “to improve the efficiency and transparency of fund movement between bank accounts for better global liquidity management”.
The French bank has also agreed to sponsor UK payments group WorldFirst, which was acquired by Ant International for $700 million in 2019, for its participation in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) scheme.
According to a company statement, the London-based firm is set to “leverage the bank’s expertise and products to expedite its integration and onboarding onto SEPA”.
