Mastercard launches new service for faster, more reliable global trade payment

Global payments technology company Mastercard has announced a new service for faster and more reliable cross-border trade payments at the Swift International Banker's Operation Seminar 2024 (Sibos 2024) in Beijing.

The Sibos 2024 was held from Monday to Thursday, and it is the first time the Chinese capital has hosted this annual event.

Over 10,000 participants from more than 150 countries and regions gathered in Beijing for the Sibos 2024, which covered a wide range of topics, including payments, digital assets, trade financing, artificial intelligence and sustainable finance.

In a recent interview with the China Global Television Network (CGTN), Alan Marquard, the executive vice president and the head of Transfer Solutions at Mastercard, said the new payment service launched at the Sibos 2024 enables faster and near real-time money transactions between banks and their clients, which helps to solve many cross-border trade pain points.

"Payments get made, but how well do they get made is the real problem. The first thing that we wanted to clean up was that a lot of payments 'break,' as we say. So it gets sent, but the receiver doesn't recognize it. There's not enough data that comes with it. Their details that are wrong. So, we've come up with a mechanism to make sure that payments are accepted at both ends, and that the moment that happens, the payment can happen. So the second thing that's really cool about this is near instant receipt of a payment. With this mechanism, the moment we've checked the money is there ready to be sent, and the person getting the money is happy to receive it, we send an instruction, the money is locked. It's credited on the other side, and that transaction is done for whoever is getting the money more or less straight away. And because we run all the time, that's available 24/7 365," said Marquard.

Marquard also highlighted the potential demand for Chinese banks to adopt this service for better international trade payment operations.

"We announced it only on Monday and the interest from banks globally has been immediate. Like I said at the beginning, trade happens everywhere and China is a massive trading partner. There are huge trade payments, and there's absolutely no reason why we wouldn't do that for Chinese banks. So the savings and everything that I described that this does for banks making trade payments completely applies to banks in China. I have no doubt from what we've seen this week that there will be plenty of interest and plenty of opportunity for Chinese banks," he said.

Mastercard launches new service for faster, more reliable global trade payment

Mastercard launches new service for faster, more reliable global trade payment

An excerpt of a China Media Group (CMG) documentary tells how local residents living at the foot of the Jiajin Mountain in southwest China's Sichuan Province cherish the memory and legacy of the Red Army.

From October 1934 to October 1936, the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army troops left their bases and marched through raging rivers, frigid mountains and arid grassland to break the siege of the Kuomintang forces and continued to fight the Japanese invaders.

The ten-episode documentary scheduled to be aired on the CMG military channel from Oct 17 to 26 is in commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the starting of the Chinese Red Army's Long March.

This excerpt of the eighth episode is about a memorial hall built to honor the history of the Red Army climbing over the Jiajin Mountain, the first snow-covered mountain they traversed in the Long March, and a pine tree standing over a grave of Red Army soldiers.

On their way over the mountain, some Red Army soldiers sacrificed their lives due to harsh weather and poor physical conditions and their bodies were not buried in time. When local residents heard the news, they voluntarily came to search for the bodies of the fallen soldiers and bury them in a grave on a ridge.

To prevent the grave from being found by the enemy, the locals decided to grow a pine tree beside it instead of erecting a monument. Over the time, the pine tree has grown with luxuriant foliage into the shape of an umbrella, sheltering the soldiers laid to rest here. Local people often come here to commemorate the revolutionary martyrs.

Ninety years ago, the Red Army troops set out from Yudu in east China's Jiangxi Province to begin the epic Long March. They passed through 14 provinces and regions across the country over the years.

The CMG documentary follows the route of the Long March, with the crew dedicating three months to revisiting the 14 provinces and regions.

With aerial photography as a key component of the production, this is the first time that a drone has been used to record the entire journey.

Local residents in Sichuan cherish memory of Red Army: documentary