UK-based payments infrastructure company TerraPay has partnered with Attijariwafa bank in a bid to facilitate cross-border payments. As per the press release, the partnership will enable Attijariwafa bank to leverage TerraPay’s payment infrastructure and, consequently, facilitate real-time global money transfers directly to the bank accounts in Morocco.

Even more to this point, through TerraPay's extensive global network of partners, Attijariwafa Bank's clients will have the capability to receive cross-border payments from multiple send partners spanning over 200 countries. The partnership is also expected to be beneficial for TerraPay. Through this joint venture, the payments infrastructure company will be able to capitalise on Attijariwafa bank’s knowledge of person-to-person (P2P) payments and its regional presence to extend its network within Morocco.

From a strategic point of view, this partnership comes to address an opportunity in the market. As the third largest remittance receiver in Africa, Morocco has a continuously expanding market that makes it an advantageous location for TerraPay. What is more, according to the official release, there has been a rise of USD 2.67 billion in money transfers from the Moroccan diaspora in 2021, when compared to 2020.

This is the first partnership that the payments infrastructure company has secured in the area. TerraPay and Attijariwafa bank’s strategies and past developments TerraPay has an extensive global network of partners such as banks, mobile wallets, money transfer operators, merchants, and financial institutions. More precisely, the fintech has access to over 7.5 billion bank accounts and 2.1 billion mobile wallets, across 110 receive countries and 208 send countries.

Moreover, the company is registered and regulated across 27 global markets. Earlier in 2023, the fintech announced it raised USD 100 million in a series B round that it reportedly planned to use to further expand its payments infrastructure. To this end, the company announced it partnered with Beyon Money in a bid to improve the process of sending money from Bahrain to major interconnected systems.

Attijariwafa Bank holds a prominent position within the Maghreb region and serves as a significant player in both the CEMAC and WAEMU zone. The bank group offers financial services via its specialised subsidiaries: insurance, loans, leasing, asset management, stock market intermediation, private banking, consulting, and factoring. The bank has over five thousand branches, and it operates in 26 countries in Africa and Europe.

In June 2023, Attijariwafa bank Group garnered attention following its partnership with Thunes, another cross-border payments company. .