Low value cross-border payments are the fastest-growing segment of the international payment market, but they are the biggest pain. Corporate treasurers cannot be sure the payment will arrive on the due date and/or that correspondent bank(s) somewhere in the payment chain will not have deducted various fee(s) from the payment. This is unacceptable when the payment is for recompensed expenses, pension or salary payments which are a major growth area.

Earthport provides a cross-border payments service which gives their clients access to the local clearings in more than 50 countries and territories across the globe. They also guarantee the delivery date and no deductions using a unique aggregated netting infrastructure combined with local bank accounts to minimise the charges and costs. Earthport’s clients are financial institutions, e-commerce and payment aggregators.

BofA Merrill 
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, who have been working with Earthport for some time, today announced a multi-year agreement to significantly expand Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s low value clearing capabilities globally, and to advance the efficiency of its high volume, low value payments. The agreement provides the bank’s global corporate client base with a greater number of solutions in more countries to help them process payments around the world.

Under the agreement, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s corporate clients will have increased access to the cross-border payments capabilities needed to enhance their global competitiveness. The bank’s clients will benefit from an expanded set of countries as well as faster, more transparent and cost efficient payments that are deeply integrated with Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s robust FX solutions.

---

Not surprisingly both parties are pleased with the new agreement and are looking forward to developing new innovative services. It will be fascinating to see what services emerge from this agreement. 

What is amazing is how long it has taken a major banking group to publicly get into bed with Earthport (many white label their services) who have had the leading low value payment platform for several years. More importantly, with the use of virtual accounts and Earthport type services is a new era in low value cross-border payments opening up & are we seeing the death knell of 40 year old correspondent banking? The only thing for sure is that low value cross-border payment services are going to improve and the charges (and costs) are going to go down.