Regional payment platform WiPay Caribbean is one step closer to creating cross-border payment settlement network.

Although CEO of WiPay Caribbean Aldwyn Wayne outlined in an interview with Jamaica Observer, in July this year the company’s aspirations to a create settlement network on its own, given its presence in Guyana, Barbados, St Lucia, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands he revealed last week on the margins of the Fintech Islands Experience Summit (FiX 2022) in Barbados that other payment providers will be coming on board.

“Seven mobile wallets from the region have signed an MOU [memorandum of understanding] to create a settlement network among mobile wallets,” he told reporters in a press conference.

“This MOU is to create a single network that allows the movement of funds easily between Caribbean countries using regulated payment providers or regulated wallets,” Wayne said, stressing that while other mobile wallets may exist in the region they may not be regulated by a central bank or monetary authority.

In a follow-up interview with Sunday Finance, Wayne named e-commerce platform CaribShopper, Colombia-based FinZi, WiPay’s US-based subsidiary Colour Bank, Cell Pay from Haiti-, Kenya-, and Nigeria-based Kotani Pay, and Girasol from the ABC Islands as parties to the agreement.

He also disclosed that the open network, called Volt, will facilitate cross-border remittance, payment settlement, and e-commerce transactions and will provide interconnectivity and interoperability to all the parties.

Interoperability means that all the fintechs will be able to share and use information with each other.

“Volt is going to be built on the Hedera distribution ledger technology,” Wayne revealed, noting that every transaction will be visible for compliance and security purposes.

The platform will also be supported by legacy solution from Mastercard, Visa, as well as automated clearing house technology.

When asked about a timeline for the establishment of the settlement network, the WiPay CEO explained that since discussions began among the parties last week at the conference so it will take a while to determine a launch date. At present, he said the priority is to create a directorship with representatives from each fintech and, thereafter, to seek the guidance of regulators in each jurisdiction to ascertain approval for the platform.

“Some time around Christmas we should have a board of management or directorship for this network, because, beyond having the technology, you have to have the regulators — BOJ [Bank of Jamaica], Central Bank of Barbados, Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. They all will have to be comfortable with these wallets that they’re regulating for us to [offer] this service,” he clarified.

In the meantime, the fintechs will continue to meet to fine-tune the features of the network and addressing the major challenge of adoption across the jurisdictions in which they will operate.

According to Wayne, adoption of mobile wallets have been a challenge because each service provider operates in a close loop that limits the capabilities. For example, he said that while some mobile wallets allow person-to-person transfers, users may not have a variety of merchants from which to choose from to effect transactions, or that others could not go to an ATM to make cash withdrawals.

He argued further that once Volt has received regulatory approvals, with the support of Visa and Mastercard solutions, then the capabilities of each fintech will be enhanced. What’s more, users will have far more merchants to choose from as well as payment options.

“So the value of this network, beyond settlements and remittance, is increasing the scale of which you can conduct business in the Caribbean beyond your country,” Wayne outlined.

For Curt Persaud, one of three organisers of FiX 2022, this can only be win-win for all parties involved.

“It’s essentially what Fintech Islands was created for. It’s bringing the right people together to have these type of collaborations, and I want to commend Aldwyn [Wayne] on leading this effort in terms of not looking at it from a competitor’s perspective, but looking at it from a collaboration perspective where the end user, the customer, is the one who really benefits,” he opined.

“Also it has expanded his market share and his ability to reach more customers. I think that we really need to change that mindset, where it’s not always about competition, it’s also what is in the best interest to serve the customers, and eventually if we have that mindset then everyone wins in that situation. To get so many wallets to potentially run on the same platform and to be interoperable is amazing… In the end the consumers and the users are who benefit,” Persaud continued.

Responding to a query on who will monetise the maintenance, support, and update of Volt, Wayne explained that each service provider will pay a small fee from each payment, transfer, or settlement.

On this note, Persaud pointed out that, given the convenience and the value created from such a network, both service providers and end users should be willing to pay for such a service.

Once the payment settlement network has been completed it will be the responsibility of each fintech to educate its users about the platform.