Visa and KOTRA Partner to Launch B2B Payment Platform in South Korea

Visa and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) have partnered to launch a trade card payment platform in South Korea.

Visa said in a press release on Wednesday (September 11) that the new Global Trade Payment Platform (GTPP) is scheduled to go live at the end of October.

According to the press release, at launch, GTPP will support payments from five of South Korea’s top 10 trading partners: Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, the United States and Mexico. The platform is then expected to expand to 20 countries within the next three years.

“Visa is committed to facilitating seamless, convenient and secure business transactions through our global network,” Chavi Jafa, head of Visa Commercial and Money Movement Solutions, Asia Pacific, said in the release. “This platform launch is particularly meaningful given the high growth potential in Korea’s B2B payment market.”

GTTP will enable domestic small and medium-sized enterprises and overseas buyers who are registered as members to send and receive payments,” the press release stated.

The digital platform will help domestic businesses process export payments and allow overseas buyers to make trade payments by simply entering their card numbers, the release stated. The platform will also be available through mobile phones.

In addition, GTTP is designed to reduce payment receipt periods for Korean exporters, ensure payment costs are lower than standard card payment fees and borne by exporters and buyers, and enhance fraud prevention by incorporating a validation step during the card issuance process. That’s the press release. “Small and medium businesses are the backbone of the economy, and through our partnership with KOTRA and GTTP’s payment experience, we look forward to accelerating SMB growth in the region,” Jafa said in a press release.

In an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster published in July, Alan Koenigsberg, senior vice president and global head of large and mid-market, industry verticals and working capital solutions at Visa, said embedded finance is becoming a transformative force in B2B commerce.

“We’re likely to see larger firms take up the embedded finance mantle, and smaller enterprises will follow suit,” Koenigsberg said, adding that consumer-like online experiences will help bring analog B2B interactions fully into the digital world.