ISX Financial, part of the Xryma Plc group, has partnered with Mastercard to extend account-to-account (A2A) payments across borders through PaidBy, its A2A payment platform. The partnership was first announced at Money20/20 Europe in the Netherlands, and Mastercard's Open Finance capabilities are being integrated directly into PaidBy. Consumers will be able to pay merchants from their bank accounts in their domestic currency. Merchants in more than 60 countries will receive settlement in their preferred local currency, with simplified reconciliation and next-business-day settlement.
Open Banking was introduced across the UK and the EU under payment services regulation in 2018. It allows a licensed payment provider to initiate a payment from a customer's bank account, which the customer authorises inside their own banking app. No card details are entered or stored, and funds settle in real time as a credit transfer, which gives merchants a cash flow advantage over card processing. However, A2A payments still largely stop at national borders. Merchants expanding internationally continue to deal with fragmented integrations, multiple providers, and complex settlement arrangements.
How the partnership divides responsibilities
Mastercard provides global connectivity, scheme-level trust, and scale. PaidBy contributes its orchestration layer, cross-border settlement infrastructure, dynamic currency capabilities, and merchant payout network. PaidBy operates under ISX Financial's authorisation from the Central Bank of Cyprus as a European Economic Area (EEA) Electronic Money Institution (EMI), and its UK activity is conducted under Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorisation. Funds are received in a dedicated merchant account, and API notifications alert merchants when the money arrives rather than when the payment instruction is sent. Finance teams can therefore release goods or close ledgers once funds are confirmed.
PaidBy also offers automated refund management, business intelligence dashboards, fraud prevention tools, and integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. ISX Financial has developed the infrastructure in-house over more than a decade and holds patents in Europe, the US, Canada, and APAC. Nikogiannis Karantzis, Group Managing Director and CEO of Xryma Plc Group, said geography has limited Open Banking's potential. In his view, what has been missing is conversion, settlement, reconciliation, and refunds working as one system across several countries.
Towards international A2A infrastructure
The partnership comes as businesses look for faster settlement and alternatives to traditional payment rails for cross-border transactions. For merchants, the model aims to replace fragmented integrations and settlement relationships with a single cross-border setup. For the wider payments industry, it is a step towards A2A payments operating as international infrastructure rather than within domestic schemes.
