Citibank and PayPal Launch Direct Digital Wallet Payments

By tapping into Citi's WorldLink platform, the bank can now directly deposit money into institutional PayPal accounts—even across borders.

Need to Know

  • Through Citibank’s WorldLink cross-border banking platform, Citi’s institutional clients can now pay directly into Paypal digital wallets.
  • The flexibility of institutions paying in different currencies and into different digital PayPal accounts encourages seamless commerce interactions.
  • The global scale, access, and on-the-ground presence of Citi’s WorldLink merged with PayPal’s 300 million customers and 200 markets create a transformative answer to a complicated problem.
  • Combined with Citigroup’s 200 million customers, (the owner of Citibank), 500 million consumers will now have access to direct cross-border digital payment options.

Analysis

Citibank and PayPal have expanded their partnership to help facilitate a global network where payments from Citi institutional customers to PayPal digital wallets are easy, quick, and hassle-free—globally. 

Starting in 2020, any of the 3,500+ clients in 200 countries served by Citi’s cross-border payments solution WorldLink are going to be able to deposit funds to the digital wallets of PayPal’s 300 million users and merchants.

“Mobile and digital wallets are becoming increasingly important alternative payment methods for our clients as they respond to changing consumer payment preferences. The growing digitization of our personal, professional and business experiences calls for ubiquitous and frictionless means of payment,” said Manish Kohli, global head of payments at Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions.

“Combining Citi’s cross-border capabilities with the truly digital and seamless client experience delivered by PayPal will enable our clients to pay from anywhere to anywhere instantly, meeting their evolving needs.”

This expansion combines Citi’s global network and 200 million strong client base of corporations, banks and organizations and PayPal’s 300 million network of businesses and consumers while allowing more flexibility for customers of both. 

This partnership extension comes on the tail of PayPal’s recent $4 billion acquisition of Honey, which the payments network hopes will aid in owning the e-commerce experience from start to finish.

Remittance is a massive industry and more fintechs and banks are looking to better serve customers that want to seamlessly move money across wallets and countries without having to incur large wire transfer fees. Earlier this year, Interac and Mastercard teamed up to enable cross-border transfers, proving how fruitful and important remittance solutions are for every type of financial institution.