Citi and Dandelion partner for cross-border payments to digital wallets | PaymentsSource

• Key insights: Citi teamed up with Euronet Worldwide subsidiary Dandelion for cross-border payments to digital wallets in the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Colombia.
• What’s at stake: Providing more choice, or optionality, in the way recipients receive is becoming an important driver for cross-border payment network effects. 
• Forward look:  Citi plans to expand the offering to other regions. Dandelion has connections to more than 200 countries. 

In cross-border payments, selling choice is becoming more important to increase the reach of payment networks, a trend that Citi is hoping to capitalize on with its latest partnership with Euronet Worldwide subsidiary Dandelion.

Citi is integrating its cross-border payments solution WorldLink with Dandelion’s digital wallet network in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Columbia and Indonesia, allowing Citi’s corporate clients to send near-instant payments to digital wallets on Dandelion’s network.

Common use cases include employee payouts such as payroll and expense reimbursements, customer refunds, compensation payments and transfers to freelance and gig-economy workers.

Citi’s WorldLink processes more than 11 million instant payments per day in more than 135 currencies and had nearly $380 billion in cross-border transaction volumes in 2024.

Dandelion’s cross-border payments network connects to more than 63 countries, according to the company. Citi said the integration will expand the reach of WorldLink to more than 150 countries.

The move is an effort by Citi to bring more optionality, or the ability to choose between different payout methods, to its corporate and public-sector clients by connecting with alternative payment methods, Emanuela Saccarola, head of cross-border payments at Citi Services, told American Banker.

“What is becoming more relevant is the voice of the payee,” Saccarola said. “In the past, the beneficiaries were just receiving a payment and they didn’t really have a voice. Now, they are demanding [a say]. Very often, especially in the e-commerce marketplace, there is a very fine line between the client of our client, and the beneficiary [of the payment].”

Those beneficiaries include gig-economy workers and merchants, a population that benefits from the speed and lower-cost of alternative payment methods, Saccarola said. “Ultimately, we allow clients and their beneficiary to choose, and if they choose to pay into a wallet, then we can support that flow.”

The partnership also comes as more consumers adopt digital wallets, Saccarola said. “By the end of next year, more than 5 billion people will have one or more wallets. We know they are growing, they are relevant, and we are facilitating that settlement.”

Digital wallet value has grown at a rate of 10x over the last 10 years, rising from $1.6 trillion in 2014 to $15.7 trillion in 2024, according to the Worldpay 2025 Global Payments Report.

“These payments still happen through the traditional banking rails,” Saccarola said. “It’s traditional settlement flows, but the payment becomes very nimble and digital going into an account. And ultimately, if you have a PayPal account or Venmo account, you can use it to shop online, and the cycle kind of continues and gets very effective.”