Cross River Bank and San Francisco-based fintech Astra Inc. have teamed up to develop what they say is the industry’s first point-to-point debit transfer product for other institutions.
The instant payment application programming interface, or API, “gives fintech developers the ability to easily embed card-to-card transfers into their own application, for the first time without the need for any additional infrastructure. The funds are instantly applied to the destination card,” said Astra CEO Gil Akos in a Dec. 16 announcement.
“Never before have developers been able to leverage card payment rails like Visa to instantly transfer cash between debit cards. We are extremely excited about the product innovations our team, together with Cross River, have been able to build on our platform that will transform the industry,” he said.
With this new solution, developers can process a transaction instantly, directly from one debit card onto another, without the need for settlement accounts or developing reconciliation operations.
The solution is payment card industry compliant by default, the companies said, and Astra’s secure API integration ensures developers will have limited liability for sensitive card data.
“Astra chose to partner with Cross River to develop this innovative solution and with our new product, we can leverage the experience of Cross River and combine it with our work in risk mitigation and automation to make fast transfers on the debit network more streamlined and efficient than ever before,” said Astra Chief Operations Officer Sam Morgan.
In November, Cross River partnered with Austin-based Payment Approved, in an arrangement under which the Fort Lee-based fintech’s payments and technology infrastructure will facilitate fund disbursement through its Push-to-Card capabilities on the Visa and MasterCard networks.
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