Media365
A healthy cash flow is crucial for the success of businesses around the world, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition to problems such as late payments by customers, rising costs and supply shortages, other issues such as expensive bank fees and delays in global remittance payments can cut into the profit margins of SMEs.
However, Visa Direct, one of the world’s largest digital payment networks, which provides international money transfer services across Visa’s global reach, works with financial technology (fintech) partners to provide solutions for SMEs to help them conduct fast and seamless cross-border payments.
Visa’s “Unlocking opportunity in SMB [small and medium-sized business] payments” report, based on a survey of 5,774 companies and published in 2024, found that 41 per cent of participants that needed to carry out cross-border payments favoured using fintechs such as Checkout.com and Aspire as their primary provider.
“For SMEs, embracing digital tools to streamline workflows and staying competitive are critical,” Rhidoi Krishnakumar, head of Visa Direct for Asia-Pacific, says. “Visa Direct helps platforms embed real-time payouts, supplier payments and cross-border collections into SME workflows – so funds arrive fast, can be easily reconciled and businesses can serve new markets without adding operational complexity.”
The company’s application programming interface (API), which allows different software apps to communicate, has been designed to be user-friendly and efficient so partners can access its network across endpoints such as cards, accounts and digital wallets through one platform, he says.
Visa Direct also provides security measures such as tokenisation to protect credentials, passkey-based login authentication to prevent account fraud, risk “tools” powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that analyse and legitimise transactions in real time, and network-grade encryption and compliance controls. “The goal is simple: to keep money movement both fast and trusted,” Krishnakumar says.
Visa Direct’s partnership with Checkout.com, a global payments solutions provider, allows its merchants to make payments via Visa Direct’s network of networks.
“Once a merchant integrates into Checkout.com, we can effectively turn on the Visa Direct payouts function – and that enables them to disperse funds to cards and accounts globally,” Brian Sze, Checkout.com’s senior vice-president, says.
Unlike big corporate companies, SMEs do not have the luxury of employing large finance teams to manage their cash flow, so it is important for them to have quick and efficient access to their funds. Visa’s report also showed 34 per cent of the businesses surveyed said payment delays were their main concern with regards to their money transfer providers.
“For a lot of businesses, one of the pain points we’re solving is what I’m calling the settlement gap – waiting for funds to move across different time zones,” Sze says. “Waiting days or weeks is no longer acceptable for businesses. Working with Visa Direct, through our platform, we are able to enable fast funds [and] push money to credit cards in minutes.”
Krishnakumar says Visa Direct is able to help partners such as Checkout.com adapt to the nuances of each payment “corridor” – the transfer of money between different places such as Hong Kong to the Philippines or Singapore to Malaysia.
“In markets like Australia and Hong Kong, where consumer preferences and compliance standards differ, we provide the tools and support to localise payment flows, manage FX [foreign exchange] and ensure robust risk controls,” he says. “This means Checkout.com can offer its clients – whether they’re global e-commerce platforms or local merchants – a consistent, secure and efficient cross-border payment experience.”
Another partner that Visa Direct works with is Aspire, a Singapore-based fintech company providing SMEs with digital banking solutions such as foreign exchange, finance, accounting and invoicing services.
“Visa Direct empowers our clients to send money across borders with ease whenever different currencies are involved,” says Abhishek Padhy, Aspire’s general manager, Payments & FX.
He says another of the pain points that SMEs face involves the high fees charged by traditional retail banks because they do not generate enough business volume to receive special rates.
An SME exporting goods from mainland China to the United States may earn a 10 to 20 per cent mark-up on its goods, but will need to pay an extra fee to send the payment from the retailer back to its own account.
“That is why a lot of SMEs turn to fintechs like Aspire,” Padhy says. “We can, through accumulated volumes, get wholesale rates from the banks, whether it’s on the FX side or the payment side, and pass these savings on to the SMEs.”
He adds that by working with Visa Direct, Aspire and its clients do not need to use another digital network such as Swift to move funds between bank accounts.
“Let’s say someone [based in Asia] is selling coffee mugs on Amazon in the US,” Padhy says. “Working with Visa Direct, we can offer local bank account details, in this case a local US dollar bank account detail. So the SME will receive the sales proceeds paid out by the Amazon US platform in US dollars.”
Aspire will pay about 0.5 US cents to receive the proceeds from each sale and will then send all the proceeds back home to the bank account of the SMEs in Singapore or Hong Kong in one lot.
“The savings are tremendous,” he says. “Previously, one transaction might cost them US$50 or US$100. Now, maybe one transaction will cost them less than US$10.”
Krishnakumar says Visa’s global reach and Visa Direct’s local partner know-how provide companies such as Checkout.com and Aspire a single access point to 12 billion endpoints – cards, accounts and e-wallets – across more than 190 countries and territories, and in more than 150 currencies.
“Aspire works with Visa Direct to offer SMEs instant payouts and seamless cross-border collections, helping them manage cash flow and expand internationally without the complexity of integrating multiple payment providers,” he says.
“Our local teams work closely with Aspire to ensure that every transaction meets the [Monetary Authority of Singapore’s] guidelines and delivers the speed and transparency that Singaporean businesses expect.”
Krishnakumar says Aspire’s payment volumes have grown more than forty-fold, with close to 10,000 customers benefiting from these enhanced solutions, since partnering with Visa in 2021.
“Together, Aspire and Visa Direct have processed over US$6 billion across 200,000 secure transactions, helping SMEs keep their cash flow healthy and their operations efficient,” he says.
Looking ahead at this year’s payment trends, Krishnakumar says there is growing interest in cross-border payments using stablecoins – cryptocurrencies typically pegged to fiat currencies such as the US dollar.
In addition, Visa also believes AI will continue to influence Asia-Pacific’s payment landscape, as businesses seek faster, more secure and more intuitive payment experiences. This will drive demand for AI agents that can automate end-to-end payment workflows, reducing costs, errors and fraud, while improving cash flow and overall customer experience.
“Beyond technology, our ongoing collaboration with partners is key,” Krishnakumar says. “We share insights from Visa’s global data, regulatory updates and best practices – enabling partners to innovate quickly and stay ahead of market trends.”
