How Mastercard invests in domestic and cross-border payments

When we dial in virtually to speak with Darrell MacMullin, Senior Vice President for Products and Platforms at Mastercard in Canada, he’s just got off the phone with his telecom provider. MacMullin is constantly evaluating the experiences he receives as a user, and applying those learnings to his role. “I am definitely UX-obsessed,” he admits. 

Over the last 5-10 years, he believes several macro trends have redefined disbursements and cross-border payments. These include the rise of the gig economy; the emergence of new verticals in gaming and gambling that are moving into the scope of regulators; greater demand for choice in various different payment use-cases; and more exacting expectations from the general public.

“People’s expectations are on demand for almost everything now,” MacMullin says. “Whether it’s a refund from a health insurance company or a person needing to send money to family back home, they don’t want to wait days for that anymore. The expectation is that it has to happen in near-real time.”

In order to meet this evolving demand, Mastercard has placed a huge emphasis on its Mastercard Send platform, which facilitates secure, near-real time payment transfers between billions of cards, banks and digital accounts.

Mastercard has also been investing heavily into new payments infrastructure, applications and services. “We've completed acquisitions and integrations of a number of companies and capabilities that give us the ability to reach about 90% of the world's population with Mastercard Cross-Border Services,” MacMullin tells us. “Together, Mastercard Send and Cross-Border Services can support payments to bank accounts, mobile wallets, cash payout locations, and any card type and scheme whether it’s debit, credit or prepaid. The platform enables banks and fintechs to be able to move money to support multiple use cases including remittances, small business and commercial payments.”

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