Terrapay receives strategic equity investment from Visa a month after raising €91.74M

London-based TerraPay, a global payments infrastructure company, on Wednesday, May 10, announced a strategic equity investment from digital payments giant, Visa. 

The announcement comes a couple of weeks after raising €91.74M in a Series B equity and debt round of funding led by IFC with participation from Prime Ventures, Partech Africa, US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and a consortium of other investors.

A UNECA report reveals that global cross-border trade has seen steady growth, primarily from emerging markets. By 2025, cross-border trade is expected to reach $8T. 

Despite this boom and the rise of digital payments globally, cross-border business payments continue to be complex and riddled with challenges, especially for SMBs. 

For these businesses, sending money can often involve delays, high costs, lack of standardisation, and inefficiency.

The reason behind the collaboration

This strategic partnership aims to establish a collaboration between Visa’s solutions to the TerraPay network, thereby simplifying digital cross-border transactions for consumers and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Ambar Sur, Founder, and CEO, TerraPay, says, “It gives me great pride to say that TerraPay’s relationship with Visa is so much more than a collaboration.” With Visa joining us as a key investor, this strategic alliance truly reflects a huge stride forward for global digital payments. We are thrilled to shape our joint vision of building a connected and empowered world of digital payments.”

The initial step in this collaboration involves integrating Visa Direct, a platform that enables the direct transfer of funds to eligible cards, bank accounts, and wallets across the globe. This is combined with TerraPay’s extensive network of wallet providers.

By doing so, TerraPay empowers its global partner with integrations of mobile wallets and bank accounts. This enables seamless and fast person-to-person remittances for individuals, as well as facilitating business payouts for SMBs across 108 countries.

This collaboration also expands to various global money movement capabilities, including cards, accounts, and wallets. 

At the same time, merchants can use TerraPay’s Request-to-Pay wallet solution globally.

TerraPay: Making money move easily

Founded in 2014 by Ambar Sur, Ani Sane, Ram Sundaram, and Akbar Hussain, TerraPay is a fintech mobile-first international payment network founded to send money to any mobile.

It is a global collaborator with banks, mobile wallets, money transfer companies, businesses, and financial organisations, expanding and fostering an open global financial ecosystem. It is registered and controlled in 27 global markets.

TerraPay enables companies to offer transparent customer experiences by providing a continuous, safe, and real-time worldwide gateway for all payments, regardless of how small or large.

Currently, the company’s payments infrastructure and solutions platform offers business/merchant pay-outs, purchasing, and issuance services, among others. 

The London-based company has partners and customers in more than 108 receiving countries and 205 sending countries with 62 settlement currencies.

Ruben Salazar Genovez, Global Head, Visa Direct, says, “We are thrilled that our investment in and collaboration with TerraPay will further enhance the reach of Visa Direct and help spur financial inclusion. More people and SMBs, including underbanked and underserved communities around the world, will soon have access to inbound digital and cross-border payment capabilities directly on their mobile devices.”