When Hamed Arbabi ran a Vancouver-based telecom venture, his company was working with thousands of operators and retailers across five different continents. 

Paying them was the hardest part.

“Our finance team was growing at the same pace as our engineering and sales teams,” Arbabi recalls. “At some point, we had 60 people constantly trying to track transactions and manually reconcile them.”

“We understand the challenge of how money moves.”

Hamed Arbabi, VoPay CEO

Technology has dramatically changed how and where people work, creating a global economy and workforce. From gig workers to remote offices, companies are increasingly faced with payment challenges that span across borders, requiring them to provide quick and seamless money transfers to a variety of locations and banking environments.

The shift prompted Arbabi to found VoPay, an API-driven platform launched in 206 to simplify the complexity of offering local payment methods globally.

“We understand the challenge of how money moves,” Arbabi said. 

VoPay also understands the benefits of having partnered with Mastercard, a company with deep expertise in global money movement.

Through their partnership, Mastercard and VoPay now offer their customers a one-stop source for cross-border and domestic transactions, making global money transfers easier.

“Every type of company is dealing with some sort of technical debt,” said Darrell MacMullin, SVP of Commercial and New Payment Flows, Mastercard, Canada. “As businesses modernize and the demands for cross-border and real-time payments increase, our integrations with merchants, governments, and banks, can enable companies to transact in a more real-time fashion around the world.”

Global cross-border payments have grown at approximately 5% annually since 2019, according to the Bank of England.

By 2027, the value of cross-border payments is projected to exceed $250 trillion, with business-to-business transactions accounting for $159 trillion.

But paying people across borders or outside regular payroll systems can be slow and complex, often leaving people on both sides of the transaction in the dark about when payments will arrive.

“If you’re expecting someone to send you a wire or payment as a business, or when you’re sending a wire or payment, you don’t have any visibility into when it’s going to land,” said Arbabi. “But this partnership allows us to deliver that and make that accessible to our target audience.”

Mastercard has been investing in payment experiences that make payments easier and more secure under its Mastercard Move banner. Today, its solutions help people send and receive money between nearly 10 billion bank accounts, mobile wallets, cards, and cash pick-up locations, representing 95% of the world’s banked population across 180 countries.

To Arbabi, Mastercard’s greatest value is its commitment to inclusion and innovation. 

VoPay’s global clients employ gig workers who rely on quick payments to ensure their financial security, as well as workers in Africa and South Asia who still rely on cash pick-up.

“Ensuring this workforce is paid quickly, transparently, and safely will help build economic security for parts of the world that desperately need it,” he said.

With both companies focused on driving Canadian-built innovation at home and abroad, this partnership reinforces Mastercard’s commitment to working with the FinTech community to simplify and speed up money movement. 

“Ultimately, people and businesses want money to move quickly and seamlessly,” added MacMullin. “We’re extremely proud of this partnership with VoPay to help funds travel across Canada’s border in a manner that continues to prioritize innovation with security baked in.” 

Learn how Mastercard is playing a key role in modernizing cross-border payments through Mastercard Move and their cross-border services solutions.

 Images provided by Weber Shandwick on behalf of Mastercard.

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