How Visa Direct and Brightwell are empowering financial institutions to become world leaders in cross-border payments

By Visa Direct | 09/24/2025

In an era where messages, photos, and videos can cross borders instantly, sending money can still feel like it’s stuck in the past. Whether it's a parent supporting family abroad or a traveler waiting for a refund, cross-border payments are often slow, expensive, and frustrating.

Traditional refund and remittance processes, often reliant on outdated paper checks and slow bank transfers, are manual, slow, and costly, unable to keep pace with the demands of the digital global economy. Alongside the operational challenges and increased costs these legacy processes can create, businesses may find it more difficult to consistently deliver the level of experience customers expect.

To address these challenges, Visa Direct has joined forces with Brightwell, a financial services technology company, to help financial institutions (FIs) and global brands deliver modern payment experiences without building them from scratch. Visa Direct’s real-time* payment rail powers fast, secure global money movement, while Brightwell’s flexible, white-label solutions and integrated compliance enable businesses to launch branded cross-border remittance and disbursement programs quickly.

Why delayed flights no longer mean delayed refunds

For Aeromexico, enhancing passenger satisfaction is a core brand value. As part of its ongoing commitment to customer experience and operational excellence, Aeromexico proactively chose to modernize its refund system. By partnering with Brightwell and implementing Latitude—a global B2C disbursement platform powered by Visa Direct’s trusted real-time* payment infrastructure—Aeromexico streamlined its refund process, making it faster, more transparent, and aligned with its premium service standards.

Latitude is a turnkey digital solution that expedites refunds, reimbursements, and other payouts for travel and hospitality brands. It allows airlines to deliver a branded, secure experience for passengers, who receive a personalized link to select their preferred payment option and gain fast access to their funds.

As Emilio Ramos Ruiz, VP of Treasury at Aeromexico, explains, “Brightwell enables refunds that are convenient for agents and passengers, regardless of country or currency. The fully branded user experience helps our passengers trust that they are making the right choice to fly with us and that any disruptions will be resolved quickly.”

Transforming remittances for banks, credit unions, and customers alike

The same priorities—speed, transparency, and customer satisfaction—are shaping how banks, credit unions, and fintechs approach cross‑border remittances. Roughly one billion people—about one in eight globally—send or receive remittances each year, and global flows reached $905 billion in 2024, up from $865 billion in 2023.¹ More than half of customers expect to send the same or more in 2025, and digital apps have become the dominant channel, valued for their perceived safety, privacy, speed, and convenience—especially when compared to physical remittance options that require visiting a location, which may not offer 24/7 availability.¹

However, many regional and community institutions may remain constrained by legacy systems, compliance burdens, and the complexity of connecting to global networks. When customers turn to third-party apps, institutions could lose fee revenue and visibility, which may weaken primary relationships. To stay competitive, banks and credit unions need embedded, compliant remittance capabilities within their own digital ecosystems— so customers can move money internationally without leaving their financial institution.

Brightwell and Visa Direct are addressing this critical need with ReadyRemit, the turnkey, end-to-end cross-border remittance platform, built on Visa Direct’s underlying payment network. Designed specifically for FIs and fintechs, ReadyRemit enables organizations to launch a fully branded, compliant, and scalable remittance service without requiring deep in-house expertise in payments or compliance.

This means FIs can now offer customers a simple P2P solution, allowing them to send money quickly and securely to eligible cards, accounts, and mobile wallets in more than 195 countries—all while remaining within their trusted digital banking environment. This not only improves the user experience by offering convenience and transparency, but also helps FIs retain customers, expand their share of wallet, and grow new member deposits by offering a comprehensive suite of financial services.

The turnkey solution for simple, secure money movement

Visa Direct’s global network and fraud-prevention capabilities—paired with Brightwell’s embedded compliance, custom-branded UX, and operational support—help enable financial institutions to offer a remittance service defined by speed, reach, convenience, and security.

Speed and reach

Visa Direct enables rapid, secure, compliant money movement to over 11 billion endpoints, including 4B+ eligible cards, 3.5B+ accounts, and 3.5B+ digital wallets across 195+ countries and 150+ currencies. It supports straight-through processing for 90%+ of transactions.

Convenience

Brightwell provides an embedded, client-branded user experience, ensuring seamless integration into an FI's or brand's digital environment. Beyond the front-end experience, Brightwell brings years of hands-on expertise in cross-border payments, including program management, pricing strategy, and operational support—critical for launching and scaling a successful remittance offering. Visa Direct offers simple use, powerful automation, and year-round availability, so payments can be processed in real-time*. And with transparent transactions that clearly display exchange rates and fees, as well as flexible transfer options including direct-to-bank accounts or cash pickup, customers benefit from a convenient solution they can trust.

Security

Businesses benefit from Visa’s 60+ years of fraud‑prevention expertise—backed by over $12B invested in security technology in the last five years and $40B in attempted fraud blocked on the Visa network in 2024.² Visa Direct enhances this with layered security that includes built-in network-level fraud screening, advanced AI‑driven risk monitoring, and optional pre‑transaction checks such as Account Name Inquiry (ANI) and Account Verification. These tools work together to validate both sender and recipient credentials, helping prevent misdirected payments and unauthorized transactions while maintaining a simple user experience. Brightwell complements these capabilities with embedded compliance and a dedicated compliance-as-a-service team, reducing regulatory burdens for financial institutions.**

FX & liquidity management

Visa Direct supports real-time FX^† and multi-currency capabilities, allowing transactions in more than 150 currencies. Persistent FX rates and multi-currency wallets enable financial institutions to better manage liquidity, reduce operational complexity, and offer transparent, competitive exchange rates.

The fast track to the future of global money movement

With the cross-border payments market forecast to reach $76.25 trillion by 2030,³ businesses, banks, and credit unions that fail to meet customer demand for speed, flexibility, and transparency risk losing wallet share and account primacy. Fortunately, the collaboration between Brightwell and Visa Direct offers a simple solution for organizations looking to retain strong customer relationships with fast, convenient payment experiences.

By eliminating the need to build internal compliance expertise or infrastructure, and with its low-code or no-code integration, Brightwell enables businesses and financial institutions to launch a global remittance program in as little as 90 days. Built on Visa Direct’s scalable, secure, globally connected platform, it is a fast, simple path to the modern money movement customers’ demand.

From ensuring quick refunds for travelers stranded far from home to helping a parent send money abroad at a moment’s notice, the collaboration between Visa Direct and Brightwell is reshaping the way money moves. Together, they’re building trust, empowering businesses, and helping money move with the ease and reliability customers expect.