Visa

In my last blog post on QR cross-border payments, I was wondering what it would take to build cross-border payment systems in Asia. My opinion was that one of the driving factors for cross-border payments for the Central banks would be to avoid a repeat of the quasi-monopoly that Visa, MasterCard and other international payment schemes enjoy.

I am therefore not surprised that the rapid growth of QR account-to-account payments and the rather sluggish uptake of traditional card payments outside the main cities of the emerging South-East Asian economies would spure Visa into action.

In a (1) published by PR News on November 6, 2024, Visa announced that they would enable cross-border payments at QR merchants, starting in Singapore.

In this article, I am speculating how such cross-border payments may actually be done. I have no direct knowledge or sources other than the Internet. However, I am trying to provide a reason for any assumption I am making.