TerraPay taps Deutsche Bank network for dollar settlement

TerraPay, a cross-border money movement company, announced a collaboration with Deutsche Bank on August 20 that gives it access to the bank’s correspondent banking network, payments capabilities and foreign exchange services, according to a statement issued in London. The companies said the arrangement is expected to improve efficiency, speed and reliability in dollar settlement.

“The future of cross-border payments will be built through collaboration between global financial institutions and purpose-built fintech infrastructure,” said Ambar Sur, founder and chief executive of TerraPay, in the announcement.

Majed Julfar, chief country officer for the United Arab Emirates at Deutsche Bank, said combining the bank’s correspondent banking, payments and foreign exchange capabilities with TerraPay’s network would support more efficient payment flows, adding that the collaboration reflects the bank’s work with fintech clients in the Middle East.

Correspondent banking arrangements give payment companies access to established banking relationships and regulatory coverage across jurisdictions that would be costly to build independently, according to The Paypers. Providers have increasingly turned to such partnerships to shorten settlement times and manage currency conversion exposure on dollar flows.

TerraPay operates a multi-rail network connecting mobile wallets, bank accounts and cards through a single integration, and says it reaches 7.5 billion bank accounts across more than 156 countries. It holds licences in more than 30 jurisdictions and also runs Xend, a wallet interoperability network. Its competitors in the segment include Visa Direct, Mastercard Move and Thunes.

The company has assembled a series of bank partnerships this year, including agreements with HDBank and TPBank in Vietnam, where banks connect to its network through existing Swift links rather than negotiating bilateral correspondent relationships. Neither TerraPay nor Deutsche Bank disclosed financial terms or a timeline for further work.