EXCLUSIVE: “Pushing the Envelope” – Ty Bennion, Runa in ‘The Fintech Magazine’

Runa has extended its push-to-card payment solution to offer businesses a fast pass, addressing the stubborn problem of cross-border payments

While domestic instant payments have been the norm in many countries for some time, mirroring their speed, efficiency and convenience across borders has been a harder nut to crack. Regulatory differences and challenging integrations posed by large-scale payments infrastructures can only be solved at a macro level.

But while central banks and governments address political and technological barriers, fintech payment service providers are taking matters into their own hands to overcome specific user pain points. One such is Runa, with an answer to a global issue for business – how to make instant cross-border payments to individuals, be they customers, staff or freelancers.

While authorities try to figure out seamless bank-to-bank payments – the politically preferred solution – Runa’s Pay to Card uses the parallel instant payment rails provided by card giants Visa and Mastercard.

Ty Bennion, Runa’s Chief Revenue Officer, responsible for new sales, existing customers and operations, says: “There are faster rails across the globe, but they’re all geographically confined. This is really the only solution that gives a globally-focussed corporate customer access to real-time, immediate payments with full visibility. Most of the existing options are consumer offerings that have been twisted into a corporate solution, and that’s not really going to solve the corporates’ problems. In fact, it only adds to their burden—now, to satisfy the demands of each payee, they’re forced to juggle three, four, five, or even 15 different connections.

“So what they want is a partner that’s truly global, that can bring everything under one roof and is actually focussed on solving the corporate side of the problem.”

The growing impatience for solutions is understandable, given the slow pace of cross-border acceleration in banking services and an increasingly global market and workforce to satisfy.

Instant payments are vital to businesses, with the European Central Bank stating they can potentially reduce businesses’ liquidity risks by more than 50 per cent. Runa says its alternative to bank-to-bank infrastructure, is simpler, easier and more cost-effective for organisations on the ground to implement. Pay to Card allows them to push funds ‘instantly and seamlessly’ to a recipient’s debit or prepaid card in more than 190 countries by leveraging the card schemes’ existing instant payment rails, Visa Direct and Mastercard Send.

“Cross-border has been stuck in the wires around EFTs (electronic funds transfers) where it’s very black box,” says Bennion. “Pay to Card represents a real breakthrough in terms of the ability to deliver money almost anywhere on the globe within minutes, if not seconds, knowing exactly how much is going to land there, and not being stuck in this old wire world where you’re trying to track a payment through every single bank it might have touched on its way there. This is an important development because it’s so critical to know exactly how much is going to show up, with real accuracy, to set and manage customers’ expectations.”

Pay to Card uses Runa’s proprietary API and builds on its experience of making payouts globally to gift cards, prepaid cards and digital wallets. This new offering, it says, ‘lowers the burden businesses face’ from fragmented payout systems by making sending money ‘faster, easier and more flexible than ever’ for everything from ‘paying gig workers and independent contractors instantly, to disbursing commissions or streamlining incentive payouts’.

“Pay to Card brings a global rail that allows the payee to get their money in real time and the sender to know that it’s going to arrive before they’ve actually clicked the button”

“For us, adding Pay to Card to the existing network that we’ve spent almost the last decade building, is a natural extension, because having the ability to meet their customers where they’re at and do it on a global scale, is what is really key to corporations today,” says Bennion.

The purported benefits include reduced banking delays, no high transfer fees, and the ability to originate funds from 40 currencies and pay out in 160 currencies, knowing exactly how much in local currency the recipient will receive. Enhanced security and compliance is provided via its Runa Assure security suite, which is designed to protect against fraud, cyber attacks and compliance risks.

At launch, Runa CEO Aron Alexander said its new offering provided greater recipient choice and speed while removing unnecessary barriers, saying: “For too long, businesses and their recipients have had to navigate outdated banking infrastructure, slow processing times and limited payout options. Runa Pay to Card is a game-changer – we’re making the payout experience as seamless as a card tap… empowering businesses to move money faster and more efficiently.”

Originally called WeGift, the paytech was renamed in 2023 as Runa, which expanded into building ‘digital value infrastructure’ enabling people to ‘pay and get paid anywhere instantly’ and incorporating the ‘instant conversion and exchange of digital gift cards, shares, crypto, donations and other digital assets’. But it believes it can further increase payment ease for consumers and businesses alike.

“Businesses need a partner that can execute in more than one geography for them and offer more visibility and easier access to consumers. Pay to Card brings a global rail that allows the payee to get their money in real time and the sender to know that it’s going to arrive before they’ve actually clicked the button.

“So it gives that speed and visibility, but now we’re looking at how we can enhance it further so that both consumer users and corporate customers know where their money is at every point along the path, and it’s very easy to provide customer service and updates to anyone asking questions about it.”

Runa is also looking to incorporate biometric identity verification.

“It’s really about setting the expectation, moving funds in a very streamlined fashion and looking at other potential that Pay to Card might have,” says Bennion. “For example, could it be expanded to give us access to wallets and the many other different payment types we’re starting to see today, again through a single card infrastructure?”

This article was published in The Fintech Magazine Issue #35, Page 33-34