BNP Paribas is partnering with China’s Ant International to enhance cross-border payment services for merchants and consumers in Europe.
Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), BNP Paribas will collaborate with Ant International to enable thousands of merchants using the French bank’s acquiring services across Europe to accept payments from over 25 international mobile partners via Alipay+.
The partnership will also focus on enhancing WorldFirst’s involvement in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) scheme. Ant International’s WorldFirst, a comprehensive digital payment and financial services platform for global businesses, aims to streamline online cross-border payments and fund transfers across Europe.
BNP Paribas will support WorldFirst’s involvement in the SEPA scheme by providing expertise and products to facilitate its integration and onboarding process.
Additionally, BNP Paribas will investigate innovations in tokenized deposits for global treasury management through Ant’s blockchain-based Whale platform. This collaboration seeks to improve the efficiency and speed of global fund settlements using tokenized deposits.
Ant International plans to utilize BNP Paribas’ infrastructure to enhance its Whale platform, aiming for improved efficiency and transparency in fund movement between bank accounts to better manage global liquidity.
Pierre Fersztand, the global head of cash management, payments, trade solutions, and factoring at BNP Paribas, stated: “This new agreement with Ant International strengthens a long-term collaboration that began in 2016 with the rollout of Alipay+ in Europe. This is a crucial step in enhancing our service offerings and leveraging our combined strengths to provide clients with excellent cross-border payment solutions. We are also eager to foster innovation with such a key player to advance the standards of treasury management for the future.”