Visa has announced its involvement in the creation of HSBC’s money transfer app, Zing, with contributions from its subsidiaries Tink and Currencycloud serving as essential components.
Launched in the UK in January, Zing directly competes with money transfer fintech Wise. It allows users to hold funds in over 10 different currencies, send more than 30 currencies, and transact in over 200 countries and territories, all through a single app accompanied by a smart multi-currency card.
“Zing demonstrates how outdated the narrative of ‘legacy financial services versus fintechs’ really is. The truth is that you don’t have to choose; Zing is just as intuitive, fast, and transparent as any product from the fintech boom, complemented by 150 years of international finance experience from the HSBC Group,” stated James Allan, CEO and founder of Zing. “We shared a clear vision with our partners at Visa: that people worldwide desire easy-to-use, secure, and trustworthy financial products to help them live their best international lives. Zing fulfills that promise, and we look forward to expanding this partnership in the future.”
The collaboration with Visa provided Zing with a single point of contact for the project, facilitating the development of a multi-currency wallet powered by Currencycloud technology. It also enabled multiple top-up methods, including swift bank transfers made possible by open banking technology from Tink.
Additionally, Zing offers UK consumers a suite of digital services, including low-cost and transparent currency exchange, financial management, instant collections, real-time exchange rates, and person-to-person (P2P) payments, all connected to a Visa card.
Serge Elkiner, global head of product for money movement solutions at Visa, emphasized that Currencycloud and Tink enabled the Zing team to bring their services to market quickly by providing ready-made solutions that integrated seamlessly into Zing’s core infrastructure, thereby reducing development time and associated costs.
“In today’s connected world, consumers should be able to transfer money as easily as sending a text message. However, many still depend on manual, paper-based processes, high fees, and cash for cross-border transactions,” he noted. “Our partners and their customers are looking for simplicity. By integrating the advantages of Tink and Currencycloud with Visa’s broader suite of solutions and brand, we’ve created an exceptional offering in record time.”
Looking ahead, Visa has established a new global agreement with HSBC to roll out additional features, introduce more currencies, and expand into international markets.