Fiserv and CashEdge have both struck deals with card giant Visa to expand the availability of their respective person-to-person payments services.
The new Visa personal payments service was first introduced in Europe late last month. Bank customers of participating financial institutions have the option to select a Visa account as the destination for funds when making a personal payment. By entering the recipient's 16-digit Visa account, email address or mobile phone number, consumers can send funds directly from their bank account to a recipient's Visa account.
The enhancement follows upgrades to the VisaNet payments network and the introduction of a new transaction type that allows financial institutions to accept incoming funds.
As part of the US launch, Visa has signed strategic product agreements with bank P2P vendors CashEdge and Fiserv. Through the agreements, the two vendors will have access to VisaNet, enabling them to integrate the Visa personal payment service into their respective person-to-person platforms - Popmoney and ZashPay.
Launched last year, Fiserv's ZashPay enables the customers of around 700 partner financial institutions to send money directly from their bank accounts to anyone they know using only an e-mail address or mobile phone number.
Currently, it enables payments to be sent directly to any US bank account in as little as one business day, with real-time transactions coming later this year.
The new deal means ZashPay users can now send and receive money to and from eligible Visa account holders through their primary financial institution, theoretically opening up the service to more than a billion cardholders.
Initially the service will focus on payment delivery to eligible credit and debit account holders, with plans to expand to pre-paid and international account holders in the future. It will be available to both consumers and small businesses using ZashPay.
The prospect of expanding payment flows beyond US shores is also attractive to CashEdge. The vendor says it will make the service available from summer, enabling US consumers to use eligible debit, credit and pre-paid accounts to send and receive payments domestically and internationally through Popmoney.