Mastercard and leading Canadian fintech VoPay enter strategic partnership to empower Canadians to move money quickly and securely with Mastercard Move

The partnership will simplify both domestic and cross-border money movement for businesses and consumers in Canada.

Responding to the ever-growing need to move money seamlessly, Mastercard and VoPay today announced a strategic partnership that will offer choice, simplicity and efficiency for near-real-time money movement in Canada and internationally for businesses and consumers. Leveraging Mastercard Move, Mastercard’s newly combined portfolio of domestic and international money transfer solutions, the companies will offer a choice of payment rails and capabilities for reliable, fast and secure fund transfers to their customers. The partnership expands Mastercard’s commitment to working with the fintech community around the world to simplify and speed up money movement.

This strategic partnership combines VoPay and Mastercard’s shared vision to eliminate payment inefficiencies, which means innovating using fast-paced technology and building cutting-edge end-to-end solutions for consumers and businesses that are scalable.

“There is a growing demand for interoperable technology that allows consumers and businesses to move money seamlessly across networks domestically and internationally,” said Ramesh Jayakrishnan, Vice President, New Payment Platforms, Mastercard Canada. “By leveraging Mastercard Move, including Mastercard’s technology and connectivity to global and domestic networks, VoPay, with its focus on providing a globally interoperable platform with embedded finance capabilities, will deliver significant value to Canadian consumers, businesses and government entities.”

With the launch of the joint solution in 2024, Canadian businesses and financial institutions will be able to make domestic payouts or disbursements to any enabled debit card or reloadable prepaid card, regardless of the payments network. Additionally, these payments could also be sent directly to the recipient’s bank account leveraging other existing Canadian payment rails. As a single platform offering access to multiple rails, the partnership will transform the way businesses and consumers pay and get paid and support a plethora of use cases.

"This partnership delivers on both companies’ commitment to provide more choice and greater transparency for people who need to send money. The platform will also transform the way businesses and consumers transfer money internationally. Be it personal remittances, small business payments or commercial disbursements, with Mastercard Move, VoPay will enable businesses, financial institutions and consumers to send money to bank accounts, mobile wallets, cards and cash-payout locations in over 100 countries. The joint solution between Mastercard and VoPay will transform the user experiences for both the sender and the recipients,” said Hamed Arbabi, CEO and Founder of VoPay.

Whether money is being sent within Canada or across the border, what matters most is that the payment is fast, secure, and transparent and everyone has access to the funds when needed.

Mastercard and VoPay’s agreement will simplify payouts in key areas:

Simplified, Near Real-Time Payouts Within Canada

Domestic disbursements include any payouts made by a business, financial institution or government to a recipient within Canada. Common payments include insurance disbursements, ride-share disbursements, gig-worker payouts, royalties, healthcare payments, and many more. 

Under this structure, VoPay will exclusively leverage Mastercard Move to enable domestic money movement to all enabled debit cards and reloadable prepaid cards in Canada, regardless of their network. Disbursers will also be able to leverage VoPay’s platform as a multi-rail disbursements engine for transfers to enabled cards using Mastercard Move as well as the opportunity to send payments to bank accounts using VoPay Instant and electronic funds transfer (EFT).  

Fast, Cost-effective and Secure Cross-Border Payouts Where and When They’re Needed

With immigration continuing to rise, coupled with Canada’s large dependency on foreign trade, the need for seamless, cost-effective and reliable international money transfer solutions is a priority across consumers and businesses. While cross-border payments have seen some innovation over the last decade, and volumes continue to grow globally, businesses and consumers continue to seek choice, simplicity, transparency and cost-effectiveness.

Mastercard and VoPay’s collaboration will ensure funds can travel across the border quickly, seamlessly and safely. Leveraging Mastercard Move exclusively, the partnership will enable businesses, consumers and banks to send money to bank accounts, mobile wallets, enabled cards and to cash-out agents in more than 180 countries.

The Mastercard Move portfolio features Mastercard-backed security, trackable payments, visibility of fees and estimated delivery times, high speed ranging from near real-time to same day for most locations.

Learn more about Mastercard Move.