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Fintech Innovations

J.P. Morgan Payments Taps Thunes to Revolutionize Global Cross-Border Transactions Through Xpedite Remit Suite

by Laily UPN
written by Laily UPN

In a major strategic move to reshape the landscape of international money movement, J.P. Morgan Payments has officially selected cross-border payments powerhouse Thunes to significantly expand its global transactional capabilities. The partnership anchors on the deployment of J.P. Morgan’s advanced Xpedite Remit solutions suite, a newly engineered offering designed to tackle the traditional friction points of moving money across international boundaries. By marrying J.P. Morgan’s vast financial infrastructure with Thunes’ Direct Global Network, the collaboration aims to provide enterprise and retail clients alike with a faster, more transparent, and highly reliable cross-border payment mechanism that bypasses legacy correspondent banking bottlenecks.

The announcement highlights an escalating industry-wide race to modernize global remittances and business-to-business (B2B) payments. Traditionally, executing an international transfer required navigating a labyrinth of intermediary banks, disjointed local clearing systems, varying foreign exchange (FX) rates, and complex regulatory frameworks that often resulted in delayed settlements and hidden costs. Through the integration of the Xpedite Remit suite, J.P. Morgan Payments and Thunes are cutting through this complexity, offering end-to-end traceability, enhanced security, and rapid payouts across both same-currency transactions and complex multi-currency conversions.

Bridging Markets Through Direct Global Connectivity

At the core of the partnership is unprecedented reach. The enhanced cross-border capabilities grant access to an astonishing 12 billion local bank accounts and mobile wallets spanning more than 100 corridors worldwide, operating on a 24/7/365 basis.

For decades, establishing this level of global footprint required financial institutions to negotiate and maintain bilateral relationships in every target market individually—a prohibitively expensive and time-consuming endeavor. By utilizing Thunes’ established network infrastructure, J.P. Morgan can seamlessly extend its geographic coverage into domestic bank accounts and mobile wallets globally without the need for market-by-market provisioning.

The Xpedite Remit suite cleverly bridges local, real-time payment rails with institutional-grade security. Whether a transaction involves traditional bank clearing networks or emerging digital wallets heavily favored in developing economies, the system ensures that funds move securely and swiftly, providing senders and receivers with complete visibility into the status of their transfers.

Executive Perspectives and Strategic Alignment

Industry leaders from both organizations have emphasized the growing consumer and corporate demand for frictionless, instantaneous cross-border financial services.

“Our clients want simpler, faster ways to move money across borders and to reach people through the payment methods they prefer,” stated Gayathri Vasudev, J.P. Morgan Payments Global Head of High Value Payments & FX. Vasudev noted that the collaboration builds upon recent institutional milestones—such as J.P. Morgan’s progress with Swift’s retail payments scheme—reinforcing the bank’s commitment to enabling client expansion into new international markets while meeting heightened expectations for speed and transparency.

The benefits of the partnership extend well beyond corporate and institutional clients, directly touching retail banking customers as well. JPMorgan Chase’s Consumer and Community Bank is slated to integrate the expanded capabilities of Xpedite Remit, directly impacting its staggering base of 94 million consumer and small business customers. This integration will facilitate faster payout experiences and enable real-time inbound payments into the United States.

“As customers increasingly move money across borders as part of their everyday lives, they expect the experience to be fast, intuitive, and reliable,” remarked Ashish Ajmera, Chase Head of Banking Payments. According to Ajmera, these upgrades represent a pivotal milestone in modernizing international payment services, empowering everyday consumers and small business owners to send money globally with heightened speed, absolute transparency, and unwavering confidence.

Background and Evolution of Thunes

The scaling of Thunes as an indispensable infrastructure layer for global finance is rooted in a steady trajectory of growth and strategic evolution. Founded in 2016 under the original moniker TransferTo, the company initially focused on specialized mobile financial services and cross-border value transfers. Recognizing the broader structural inefficiencies plaguing international payments, the firm underwent a comprehensive corporate rebrand in 2019, emerging as Thunes.

Over the subsequent years, Thunes aggressively built out an alternative to the traditional SWIFT-based correspondent banking architecture. Eschewing the multi-hop intermediary model, Thunes engineered a direct, proprietary global network designed specifically for the digital age. Today, the fintech company supports operations across 80 distinct currencies, enables direct payouts to approximately 130 countries, and accommodates more than 320 diverse payment acceptance methods.

By offering a streamlined, transparent network that significantly reduces transaction times and operational costs, Thunes has carved out a formidable market position. It now stands as a primary challenger to other modern cross-border financial technology leaders, such as Wise and Airwallex, cementing its reputation as a trusted backbone for global financial institutions seeking to upgrade their digital offerings.

Chronology of Modern Cross-Border Payments Innovation

The collaboration between J.P. Morgan Payments and Thunes does not happen in a vacuum; it is the latest chapter in a multi-year industry evolution driven by regulatory pressure, technological breakthroughs, and changing consumer expectations:

  • 2016: Thunes is founded under the name TransferTo, initially focusing on mobile wallet connectivity and emerging market remittances.
  • 2019: The company officially rebrands as Thunes, signaling a broader strategic pivot toward becoming a comprehensive global cross-border payments and collection network.
  • Early 2020s: Global demand for instant payments surges. Financial institutions face mounting pressure from agile fintech disruptors (like Wise, Airwallex, and Revolut) to eliminate hidden fees and multi-day settlement windows.
  • Mid-2020s: J.P. Morgan Payments accelerates its technological modernization, integrating advanced API-driven architectures and participating in progressive initiatives such as Swift’s retail payments scheme.
  • September 2026: J.P. Morgan Payments officially announces its strategic selection of Thunes, launching the enhanced Xpedite Remit suite to dramatically scale its international footprint and integrate deeply with Chase’s consumer banking operations.

Market Implications and Future Outlook

The integration of Thunes’ Direct Global Network into J.P. Morgan’s Xpedite Remit suite carries profound implications for the global payments ecosystem. For commercial banking clients, the reduction of cross-border friction translates directly into optimized working capital management. Businesses can settle international invoices, pay global workforces, and manage supply chain transactions in real-time, effectively eliminating the liquidity buffers traditionally required to account for delayed wire transfers.

Furthermore, the democratization of access to 12 billion bank accounts and mobile wallets provides a powerful catalyst for financial inclusion. As traditional boundaries between domestic and international payment systems continue to blur, consumers in developed economies can send funds to family members in developing nations with the same ease and speed as a domestic peer-to-peer transfer.

Ultimately, this partnership underscores a broader structural shift within institutional banking: rather than attempting to build proprietary infrastructure in every corner of the globe from scratch, legacy banking giants are increasingly partnering with agile fintech innovators. By combining J.P. Morgan’s institutional trust, regulatory compliance expertise, and balance sheet strength with Thunes’ agile, direct global connectivity network, the collaboration sets a new benchmark for what modern cross-border payments can—and should—achieve.

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Fintech Innovations

J.P. Morgan Payments Taps Thunes to Power Xpedite Remit and Supercharge Global Cross-Border Capabilities

by Suro Senen
written by Suro Senen

In a strategic move designed to fundamentally reshape the landscape of international money movement, J.P. Morgan Payments has officially selected cross-border payments network Thunes to expand its global reach. The partnership centers on J.P. Morgan’s advanced Xpedite Remit solutions suite, a sophisticated financial technology platform engineered to streamline how funds traverse international borders. By integrating J.P. Morgan’s robust financial infrastructure with Thunes’ Direct Global Network, the collaboration bridges the gap between legacy banking systems and modern, real-time local payment rails.

The alliance addresses a long-standing bottleneck in the global financial ecosystem: the friction, opacity, and high costs historically associated with international transfers. Historically, financial institutions looking to move money across borders have had to navigate a labyrinth of correspondent banking relationships, disparate local payment rails, fluctuating currency conversions, and a complex matrix of regulatory compliance frameworks across different jurisdictions. Through this new integration, J.P. Morgan aims to bypass the traditional market-by-market connectivity model, offering its institutional and retail clients an expansive, highly secure, and transparent alternative that operates seamlessly around the clock.

The Architecture and Capabilities of the Xpedite Remit Suite

At the core of this partnership is the Xpedite Remit suite, a technology stack designed to deliver enhanced transaction protection, complete end-to-end traceability, and accelerated payout speeds. Whether a transaction involves identical currencies or requires complex foreign exchange (FX) conversions, the platform is built to execute payouts reliably and transparently.

Through the integration with Thunes’ proprietary network, J.P. Morgan Payments instantly gains unprecedented reach. The enhanced capabilities grant access to an astounding 12 billion local bank accounts and mobile wallets spread across more than 100 corridors worldwide, all accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This immense connectivity allows J.P. Morgan to deliver localized payout experiences without the traditional requirement of setting up direct banking partnerships in every individual destination country.

Furthermore, the benefits of this infrastructure upgrade extend well beyond corporate and institutional clients. JPMorgan Chase’s Consumer and Community Bank is slated to integrate these enhanced capabilities directly into its ecosystem. This integration will directly impact Chase’s vast footprint of 94 million consumer and small business customers, who will soon benefit from significantly faster payout experiences, including real-time inbound payments originating from international destinations directly into the United States.

Background and Evolution: The Rise of Thunes

To fully understand the significance of this collaboration, it is necessary to examine the trajectory of Thunes within the broader fintech landscape. Founded in 2016 originally under the name TransferTo, the company underwent a strategic rebrand to Thunes in 2019 to better reflect its pivot toward comprehensive global B2B cross-border payment solutions.

Over the years, Thunes has constructed a powerful alternative to traditional correspondent banking networks. Unlike legacy systems that rely on a chain of intermediary correspondent banks—which often add days to settlement times and introduce hidden fees—Thunes operates a direct, proprietary global network. Today, the fintech’s infrastructure supports 80 different currencies, facilitates payments to approximately 130 countries, and accommodates over 320 distinct payment acceptance methods.

This model has allowed Thunes to carve out a dominant niche in the global payouts market, positioning it as a formidable competitor against other digital-first cross-border pioneers such as Wise and Airwallex. By offering a direct route to mobile wallets and alternative local payment methods, which are rapidly gaining dominance over traditional bank transfers in developing economies, Thunes provides legacy banking giants with the agile digital infrastructure they desperately need to stay competitive.

Official Perspectives and Leadership Commentary

Industry leaders from both organizations have emphasized the transformative potential of the partnership, pointing to evolving consumer and corporate expectations as the primary catalyst for modernization.

Gayathri Vasudev, Global Head of High Value Payments & FX at J.P. Morgan Payments, highlighted the growing demand for frictionless international transactions among corporate clients. "Our clients want simpler, faster ways to move money across borders and to reach people through the payment methods they prefer," Vasudev stated. She added that the collaboration builds upon previous milestones achieved by the bank, such as its recent progress with Swift’s retail payments scheme, reinforcing J.P. Morgan’s commitment to helping clients scale globally while delivering the speed and seamlessness modern users demand.

Echoing these sentiments from the retail banking perspective, Ashish Ajmera, Head of Banking Payments at Chase, underscored the shifting paradigms of everyday financial behavior. "As customers increasingly move money across borders as part of their everyday lives, they expect the experience to be fast, intuitive, and reliable," Ajmera noted. He characterized the integration as a pivotal step forward in modernizing cross-border payments, ultimately empowering consumers and small businesses to execute international transfers with unprecedented speed, transparency, and confidence.

Broader Impact and Market Implications

The partnership between J.P. Morgan Payments and Thunes carries profound implications for the global financial services industry, signaling an ongoing shift toward collaborative ecosystems where traditional banking titans and nimble fintech innovators join forces.

For decades, large global banks held a near-monopoly on international trade and remittance flows, relying on entrenched correspondent banking networks that, while secure, became increasingly slow and costly compared to emerging digital alternatives. However, the rise of digital commerce, the gig economy, and the global diaspora has dramatically accelerated the demand for real-time, low-cost cross-border payments. By partnering with a digital-first network like Thunes, J.P. Morgan is effectively future-proofing its payments architecture, allowing it to compete aggressively not just with other global systemically important banks (G-SIBs), but also with fast-moving fintech disrupters.

Moreover, the integration of mobile wallets into the Xpedite Remit suite reflects a crucial acknowledgment of shifting global payment preferences. In many emerging markets across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, mobile wallets have largely leapfrogged traditional bank accounts as the primary financial tool for everyday citizens. By connecting its institutional clients directly to billions of mobile wallets, J.P. Morgan is opening up new economic corridors that were previously difficult or cost-prohibitive to service efficiently.

As financial institutions face mounting pressure to deliver instant, transparent, and cost-effective services, the J.P. Morgan and Thunes alliance serves as a blueprint for the future of international banking. By combining the scale, trust, and regulatory expertise of a premier global financial institution with the agility and direct network connectivity of a specialized fintech, the partnership establishes a new benchmark for cross-border payments in the digital age.

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