NetXD and Visa B2B Connect Expand Partnership to Accelerate Cross-Border Payments in Asia

NetXD is expanding its collaboration with Visa B2B Connect to onboard banks in Asia, following successful implementations across eight countries in Europe and the Americas. This expansion offers financial institutions a faster, pre-certified route to bypass traditional correspondent banking, significantly reducing the technical hurdles and costs associated with cross-border B2B payments.

What was announced

NetXD is bringing its hosted payments-as-a-service (PaaS) offering to the Asia Pacific region to facilitate faster integration with Visa B2B Connect. This move builds on a partnership established in 2020, during which NetXD has already onboarded numerous banks across Europe and Latin America. The service is designed to allow banks to go live and begin transacting in a matter of weeks, removing the need for significant upfront investment or the complex task of building internal integrations for existing messaging systems.

Visa B2B Connect itself is a multilateral network that serves as an alternative to the legacy correspondent banking system. It currently operates in 118 countries and territories, focusing on providing predictability, finality, and transparency for corporate cross-border transactions. By eliminating intermediary fees and lowering operational overhead, the solution aims to make global money movement more cost-effective. As part of the integration, NetXD provides the capability to screen transactions for all participants before they are submitted to Visa for processing, adding a layer of compliance and security to the workflow.

"Visa is committed to modernizing cross-border payments around the world and the collaboration with NetXD will help our clients start transacting on our network even faster. We are excited to kick off the collaboration in Asia Pacific with more markets to follow this year,"

Ben Ellis, Global Head of Visa B2B Connect at Visa

The companies involved

Visa is one of the world’s most dominant forces in digital payments, maintaining a massive global infrastructure that connects consumers, businesses, and financial institutions. The company has recently focused on diversifying its offerings beyond consumer credit and debit, pushing into the B2B space through specialized networks like Visa B2B Connect and real-time payment solutions. FF News has tracked Visa’s evolution through more than 700 reports, noting its aggressive expansion into emerging markets and new technology hubs.

NetXD is a fintech provider specializing in payments-as-a-service. As a certified onboarding partner for Visa since 2020, the company acts as a technical bridge for banks that want to modernize their payment capabilities without overhauling their core legacy systems. Led by Seshadri Rengarajan, Head of Platform and Strategy, NetXD focuses on reducing the "time to market" for financial institutions. The company’s PaaS model is particularly relevant for regional banks that may lack the internal engineering resources to build direct integrations with global multilateral networks.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has frequently reported on Visa’s strategic initiatives to modernize global money movement. Recently, the publication covered how ADIB Launches UAE’s First 24/7 Real-Time EGP Transfers to Egypt via Visa Direct, highlighting the company's push into real-time corridors. In the Asia Pacific region specifically, Visa Launches Six Global Capability Hubs in Singapore to Pioneer Agentic AI and Quantum Payments, signaling a deep commitment to the Singaporean and broader Asian fintech ecosystems. Furthermore, Visa’s role in security was noted when Verifone Integrates Featurespace AI to Combat Evolving Payment Fraud, demonstrating the breadth of Visa's influence across the entire payment lifecycle, from transaction processing to fraud prevention.

What this means

The expansion of the NetXD and Visa partnership into Asia signals a direct challenge to the dominance of traditional correspondent banking in one of the world’s most active trade regions. By lowering the barrier to entry through a PaaS model, Visa is effectively democratizing access to high-speed B2B rails for smaller regional banks that were previously reliant on larger intermediaries. This puts significant pressure on legacy systems to improve transparency and reduce fees. However, the success of this rollout will depend on how quickly these banks can navigate the complex, fragmented regulatory landscapes across different Asian jurisdictions while maintaining the "weeks-not-months" integration promise.