According to a PYMNTS Intelligence report, “Cross-Border Payroll and Contractor Payments,” 47% of firms surveyed said that managing taxes is the most common challenge when hiring globally. Another study by PYMNTS Intelligence found that 80% of companies hit roadblocks when making international workforce payments. 

But for SAP users, managing payments to globally dispersed internal and external workers may just have become easier to manage.

In a Tuesday (April 22) press release, payroll and payments automation platform Papaya Global announced a partnership with AKT, an HR cloud solutions provider specializing in global SAP integration.

According to the release, the firms have rolled out an integrated workforce payment solution for companies that use SAP’s human capital management (SuccessFactors) and vendor management (Fieldglass) systems to pay employees and contractors across international operations.

SAP SuccessFactors and Fieldglass users now have tools available for making payments to both permanent and external/contingent workers accurately and on time without having to switch systems, the release said.

According to the press release, Papaya Global pays workers in the local currency of 160+ countries and has raised more than $450 million in capital since it was founded in 2016, for a $3.7 billion valuation.

In a statement, Yosef Fried, the vice president, alliances and ecosystem of Papaya Global said: “We’re excited to partner with AKT, which has a record of more than 500 completed projects.”

The release also mentioned that AKT provides “a range of services, including IT consulting, systems integration, and digital transformation solutions” and partners with Qualtrics, in addition to SAP, “to integrate and streamline complex processes across departments.”

In other Papaya Global news, PYMNTS reported in March that the company added Citibank as a sponsor bank, in addition to JPMorgan Chase, to enable Papaya Global to expand to new geographic regions.

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The collaboration, announced Thursday (April 17), lets MoneyGram customers in the U.S. use Plaid’s technology to help authenticate their bank accounts, allowing for faster and more secure funding for both domestic and cross-border payments.

“The MoneyGram network moves money for over 50 million customers each year, across nearly every country in the world,” MoneyGram CEO Anthony Soohoo said in a news release.

“This partnership with Plaid expands our global capabilities to deliver faster, more secure payments for our customers. It’s a clear step forward in our mission to make cross-border payments seamless, affordable and secure for everyone.”

The release notes an increasing number of American consumers value the ability to link their bank accounts with financial apps, prizing pay-by-bank options for their ease, speed and additional security.

“Plaid provides the most widely used and trusted network across digital financial services, covering thousands of financial institutions across the United States, Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom,” said Brian Dammeir, head of payments and financial management at Plaid. “Now, MoneyGram can leverage the power of the Plaid network to quickly and securely drive conversion, reduce bank returns and proactively prevent fraud.”

The pay-by-bank solution connects to Plaid’s network of thousands of banks and credit unions, pairing that company’s instant account verification with MoneyGram’s compliance and anti-fraud systems, the release added.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence and Trustly has shown that 6.4% of American consumers say they are already using pay by bank and 40% are at least somewhat interested in using the payment option.

Of that group, consumers who earn $100,000 or more per year were the most inclined to embrace pay by bank, with 42% saying they are intrigued or interested. The research found that higher-income consumers are among the earliest of adopters, with just under 10% of that demographic saying they are already paying by bank.

In an interview last year with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Plaid’s Dammeir said that “the user experience is what’s really changing,” especially when it comes to paying bills. Traditional online bill pay requires users to remember or locate their account information, Dammeir added, a process prone to errors.

Pay by bank eliminates that friction, letting consumers digitally authenticate their account information, making payments via a streamlined, biometric-driven interface.

“It’s about modernizing bank-based payments and putting them on par with other methods in terms of user experience,” he said.

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The financial services company will use Magnite’s technology to buy media as an advertiser and to monetize its owned media, the companies said in a Wednesday (April 16) press release.

“Magnite’s expansive technology and service offerings make them a versatile partner that can help address our desire to grow our business,” Western Union Senior Vice President Chris Hammer said in the release.

One Magnite solution that Western Union Media Network will use is ClearLine, which will allow it to maximize its working media budget by purchasing streaming inventory directly from publishers, according to the release.

Western Union Media Network will also use Magnite technology to monetize its owned media properties — including westernunion.com and its iOS and Android apps — by enabling advertisers to tap into them, the release said.

The two companies have also signed a supply-path optimization (SPO) agreement that will streamline Western Union’s access to curated omnichannel inventory, per the release.

“We’re proud to support Western Union Media Network’s entry into advertising by helping them activate efficiently on all fronts,” Magnite Head of Commerce Media Stephanie Reustle said in the release.

Western Union launched its Media Network business in November, saying it lets companies advertise to its customers via company-owned channels like its website, mobile app and digital-out-of-home (DOOH) screen network as well as through audience extension.

The company said these channels enable advertisers to reach a diverse, multicultural and global audience, and Western Union’s data helps marketers improve efficiency with advanced targeting.

“We are excited to offer this opportunity to brands as an extension to their existing marketing efforts, providing a new way to actively engage with consumers, enhance brand affinity and unlock revenue,” Western Union Chief Marketing Officer Bob Rupczynski said in a November press release. “And for our customers, I am proud that we are able to provide compelling offers from relevant brands in the channels they trust.”

In February, Western Union reported that its Media Network business contributed to 56% revenue growth for its Consumer Services segment in the fourth quarter of 2024.

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The partnership, announced Tuesday (April 15), is designed to speed cross-border money movement, while making payments more accessible by connecting banks, mobile wallets and financial institutions.

“The Middle East and Africa are at the forefront of the digital transformation, yet financial barriers still limit growth for many,” Otto Williams, senior vice president and regional head and general Manager for the Middle East and Africa at PayPal, said in a news release.

“At PayPal, we’re committed to changing that. By partnering with TerraPay, we’re making it easier for businesses and individuals to make cross-border transactions, quickly, securely, and without friction.”

According to the release, the partnership will see TerraPay — via secure PayPal account linking — act as an enabler, allowing mobile wallet and bank users across the MENA region to transfer funds to their PayPal accounts.

This collaboration, the companies said, will promote financial inclusion, allowing businesses and consumers “to participate more effectively in the global digital economy.”

Recent research by TerraPay and PYMNTS Intelligence shows that 42% of consumers prefer to send cross-border payments via digital wallets.

It’s a figure that leaves a “staggering greenfield opportunity of 58% of individuals,” as PYMNTS wrote earlier this month, one that “stretches across 5.2 billion mobile wallet users and trillions of transactions, as people travel, conduct cross-border commerce and send remittances.”

The research shows that consumers typically use digital wallets for smaller-value remittance payments versus other methods, which indicates “they are becoming the go-to for routine, lower-stakes international transfers,” as PYMNTS wrote recently.

In addition, consumers who are more familiar with digital wallets overall are more likely to use them for cross-border transactions, a sign that rising digital literacy will fuel greater adoption.

But as Ani Sane, co-founder and chief business officer at TerraPay, said in a recent interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, moving money is about more than just the transaction:

“It’s about compliance, regulations and reconciliation, and settlements and scheme rules.”

Building a network to handle those complexities is no easy undertaking, considering, as Sane said, digital wallets function in silos, on the regulatory and technological sides of the equation, as they’re designed to work in a particular country.

Sane also touched on the ability of digital wallets to promote financial inclusion.

“When you look at the underbanked and underserved segments” of the world, “and you look at mobile wallets [held] by that segment, it matches up almost 100%,” said Sane.

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The agreement is designed to bring Zelle’s peer-to-peer (P2P) services to minority depository institution (MDI) credit unions, expanding their access to cutting-edge payment solutions and helping them remain competitive, according to a Monday (April 14) press release.

“If credit unions are not offering Zelle, their members are likely to look elsewhere for the convenience of a P2P payments offering,” Amy Evans, senior vice president of Strategic Solutions at Velera said in the release. “It is clear consumers appreciate the convenience, ease and reliability of Zelle, three key drivers of consumer payment preferences.”

The collaboration aligns with a wider trend among community banks and credit unions that are increasingly adopting the P2P service. Early Warning Services found that 95% of the U.S. financial institutions offering Zelle are community banks and credit unions, per the release.

“Zelle is not just a tool for the big banks. It’s powering real-time payments for community banks and credit unions nationwide — from rural towns to urban neighborhoods,” Zelle General Manager Denise Leonhard said in the release. “…Zelle is helping local community banks and credit unions meet rising consumer expectations, compete with larger players, and bring modern financial tools to Main Street.”

Through the new partnership, Velera will guide credit unions through Zelle implementation, offering integration with existing mobile apps, data-based fraud detection, and analytics-driven reporting, the release said. For MDI credit unions, this means the potential to enhance member satisfaction, bolster trust, and strengthen local communities with a real-time payment experience on par with larger institutions.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Minding the Gap: What Separates the Best From the Rest in the Credit Union Space” found that FinTech collaboration and earmarking assets for investment and innovation are determinants of success. Given the fact that PYMNTS innovation measurements showed that forward-thinking, top-performing credit unions meet the digital expectations of their members 77% of the time, there’s quantifiable success tied to those approaches.

In a deep dive into the offerings most prized by consumers, 89% of top-performing credit unions offer real-time payments. Additionally, 49% of top performers implement in-house procedures to gather member suggestions for improvement. Roughly half of top-performing CUs test innovations in-house and with members before coming to the wider market with new products or services.

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The global bank has discussed potential partnerships with private credit firms, although the talks are at various stages and may not result in formal collaborations, Reuters reported Friday (April 11), citing unnamed sources.

HSBC did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

The bank is looking to the private credit market to increase revenue after it underwent a restructuring, cut jobs and made a retrenchment in investment banking, according to the report.

At the same time, senior executives, including CEO Georges Elhedery, question whether the revenue will outweigh the costs, the report said.

In addition, the near-term demand for credit has declined due to corporate borrowers’ uncertainty about the effects of new U.S. tariffs, per the report.

Some other global banks have already moved into the private credit sector, the report said. Citi made a deal with private credit firm Apollo, J.P. Morgan set aside more money for direct lending deals, Goldman Sachs launched a private capital markets business called Capital Solutions Group, and Deutsche Bank made an agreement with its asset manager DWS to give it first preference on private credit deals, per the report.

When J.P. Morgan earmarked another $50 billion for its direct lending efforts in February, it was reported that the bank did so to gain a greater foothold in the fast-growing private credit market.

In the previous four years, J.P. Morgan deployed over $10 billion across more than 100 private credit transactions and worked with lending partners to allocate an additional $15 billion in private credit.

“Pairing our vast origination platform with our lender client base has supercharged our ability to deliver in size for borrowers and increased deal flow for lenders,” Kevin Foley, global head of capital markets, said at the time.

Estimates of the size of the shadow banking sector, which includes private credit, vary widely, PYMNTS reported Wednesday (April 9). The Financial Stability Board calculated that the nonbank financial intermediation sector was tied to $239 trillion in assets, and the more narrowly defined “other financial intermediaries” harbor assets of $68 trillion.

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Via the collaboration, Uber will use Carrot Ads in the United States to extend the reach of Uber Eats’ Sponsored Items formats to consumer packaged goods (CPG) advertisers, according to a Thursday (April 10) press release.

“The integration aims to provide a broader set of CPG advertisers with access to effective solutions that help them win the digital shelf,” the release said.

Starting this month, CPG advertisers in the U.S. will be able to reach millions of “high-intent” grocery and retail marketplace shoppers on Uber Eats using the Carrot Ads solution, which will provide “increased discoverability of relevant products and brands” to shoppers, per the release.

CPG advertisers will be able to build campaigns using Instacart Ads Manager that automatically extend throughout the Instacart Ads ecosystem, which now includes the Uber Eats grocery and retail marketplace, according to the release.

“By enabling access to Uber Eats Sponsored Items in the U.S. via Instacart’s Carrot Ads solution, we believe we can better meet the needs of more CPG brands, especially those making network buys,” said Travis Colvin, general manager for grocery and retail at Uber Advertising. “Our advertising team already works with many of the world’s largest brands directly, but we want to be there for brands of all sizes to help them easily reach our engaged audience in a way that suits them. For the U.S. market, we believe this integration best achieves that goal.”

The partnership comes as brands try to reach an audience that might be much more cautious about their spending. Data released Thursday showed price increases in the “food at home,” or grocery, category. That uptick was primarily fueled by a 5.9% increase in egg prices and a 1.3% rise for meats, poultry, fish and eggs from February to March.

Consumers were retrenching even before the latest round of White House tariffs upset the world economy.

As PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote in a column this week, nearly 78% of consumers across “all major retail categories of spend — clothes, food, health and beauty, personal services, household and tech/digital services — are rethinking what they buy and how much they are willing to spend when they do. Tech purchases, eating out and buying coffee at the local coffee shop are consistently on the chopping block, even for those who do not feel financial pressures.”

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The collaboration will allow the Stockholm-based company to address the rising demand from small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) for efficient spend management tools, according to a Thursday (April 10) press release.

“The partnership will enable Visa to better meet its clients’ needs and the underserved SMB market,” the release said.

Visa will invest in Mynt’s Series B funding round, and Mynt will become a reseller partner for Visa. This will let Visa resell Mynt’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions directly to issuers, per the release.

Mynt’s platform offers auto-reconciliation and integration into accounting software, providing spend insights and easing administrative burdens, according to the release.

“Another great example of Nordic FinTech innovation where Visa is deepening collaboration with Mynt, where our combined capabilities will enable our clients and partners to bring market-leading propositions and service to [SMBs] across Europe,” said Philip Konopik, regional managing director of Visa Nordics and Baltics, in the release.

The two companies previously worked together to expand the adoption of Mynt’s embedded card solution. The tool allows enterprise resource planning fleet and fuel companies and banks to offer embedded corporate card and spend management solutions to their SMB customers in Europe.

The partnership comes as SMBs face increased financial pressure. Half of SMBs in the United States “rely on their day-to-day sales just to keep the lights on,” PYMNTS wrote this week. “Nearly 1 in 5 are pessimistic about their odds of survival over the next two years. Almost 7% think they might not make it.”

Just 28% of SMBs have business cards. Of that group, 64% of businesses with access to any form of financing use their corporate cards to withdraw cash for operations.

Although credit cards potentially carry high interest rates, they “offer a quick and relatively easy way to access funds,” PYMNTS wrote. “At the same time, 4 in 10 businesses with access to financing also rely on their owners’ personal credit cards,” blurring the lines between personal and business finances and potentially putting both at risk.

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The collaboration, announced Tuesday (April 8), is designed to give merchants more flexibility and choice in offering financing to their customers.

“In today’s competitive market, the ability to provide customers with longer-duration, convenient payment options is essential,” the companies said in a news release. “With this integration, thousands of merchants that host websites on Adobe Commerce can offer the Synchrony product suite to accept Synchrony credit cards with extended term promotions and offer Pay Later installment financing at checkout online.”

Jason Knell, senior director of content and commerce partners at Adobe, said that flexible financing options can increase average order size and foster repeat business.

“Synchrony’s integration with Adobe Commerce to offer more financing options magnifies growth opportunities for our joint merchants by enhancing the shopping experience,” he said.

The partnership comes at a time when small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are facing significant pressures in the wake of new U.S. tariffs.

“When the economic winds start to howl, small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) turn up their collars,” PYMNTS wrote Wednesday. “As the Trump administration’s global tariffs send shock waves through stock markets and prompt fears of a recession, businesses across America may be in store for particularly acute pain.”

Forthcoming research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that financing for SMBs is hard to come by. This research was conducted from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12, when the White House had announced tariffs against Canada, China and Mexico but before many countries instituted retaliatory levies and a global trade war kicked off.

According to the research, a little under half of these businesses — 44% to be precise — say they have access to financing in any form: cash, a business credit card, bank loan or alternative source of credit.

“The workhorse of the U.S. economy lives hand-to-mouth,” that report added.

And with no ability to tap funds when things get tight, pessimism is rising. Just under 7% of all SMBs surveyed for the report in early-to-mid February said they were unlikely to survive the next two years. This figure jumps to 13% for SMBs with no access to financing.

“It’s feeling like a tornado to small business owners,” Natalie Madeira Cofield, CEO of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, which backs efforts to help companies with under 10 employees, told the New York Times recently. “This is an unprecedented moment.”

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The collaboration, announced in a news release Monday (April 7), will help Access introduce the next phase of its Juzt Digital Credit Card program in the U.S.

“The expanded Juzt Digital Credit Card program, which leverages i2c’s global, unified banking and payments platform, offers an unsecured digital credit card aimed at helping consumers build and strengthen their credit histories,” the release said.

In removing the requirement for collateral, the card offers a more inclusive approach, catering to consumers in the subprime category or those who wish to establish a strong credit record, the companies added.

“This ongoing partnership with Access Finance highlights the versatility of i2c’s platform in supporting complex credit programs and expanding financial access,” said i2c chief executive Amir Wain. “We’re excited to continue supporting Access Finance in their mission to provide U.S. consumers with meaningful credit-building tools that can help shape a more financially inclusive future.”

Working with The Bank of Missouri as the issuing bank, Access Finance aims to bridge a gap in the U.S. market by offering accessible credit options that also serve as effective tools for building credit.

“Access Finance is committed to helping consumers take control of their financial futures by providing accessible credit-building opportunities through the Juzt card,” said Ivan Arnaudov, CEO of Access Finance, in the release. “In partnership with i2c, we deliver a seamless, digital-first solution that empowers users to establish or improve their credit, no matter where they are on their financial journey.”

i2c provides credit solutions for various issuers, including FinTechs and traditional financial institutions, leveraging over 20 years of experience in global payments. Its unified platform offers a foundation for transaction processing, portfolio reporting and network integration with major payment networks.

It also provides tools for cardholder engagement, including flexible loyalty program configuration, various reward currencies, and a communication manager for trigger-based communications, as well as fraud and risk management solutions.

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