The news
Mambu and Mastercard (MA) announced on September 29, 2026 that Mambu will connect Mastercard Move, Mastercard's portfolio of money movement services, to its Intelligent Core platform. Banks that run on Mambu will get a pre-built route to offer cross-border payments.
The companies called the arrangement a strategic collaboration. Mambu, a cloud banking platform, said the pre-built connection is meant to cut implementation complexity and shorten time to market for institutions that want to add international transfers. The announcement, issued from Amsterdam, did not give a launch date, pricing or any named bank customers.
According to the announcement, Mastercard Move lets money move within and across more than 200 countries and territories and in more than 150 currencies. Mastercard says the service reaches more than 17 billion endpoints and 95% of the world's banked population. Those are the company's own figures.
Intelligent Core, which Mambu launched on September 2, 2026, combines Mambu Core for deposits and lending, Mambu Payments, and a new artificial intelligence layer called Mambu Agentic. Mambu said the Mastercard link will let institutions offer cross-border payments inside their existing digital banking journeys. As reported by Financial IT and TechAfrica News, the companies said the goal is to meet the needs of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and retail customers.
Mambu chief executive Fernando Zandona said adding cross-border payments should not force institutions into years of integration work or a rethink of their entire technology stack. He tied the deal to composable banking, Mambu's approach of building a bank from separate modules that can be added without replacing existing systems. Pratik Khowala, global head of transfer solutions at Mastercard, said moving money across borders remains "complex and fragmented" despite advances in digital payments.
Mambu said the partnership builds on its expansion into payments, which followed its acquisition of Numeral in 2024. In July 2026, Mambu also said it had become a certified Swift Business Connect Enabler, offering customers managed connectivity to Swift, the global financial messaging network, through its payments platform.
The numbers
- Countries and territories covered by Mastercard Move (Mastercard figure)
- 200+
- Currencies supported by Mastercard Move (Mastercard figure)
- 150+
- Endpoints reached by Mastercard Move (Mastercard figure)
- 17+ billion
- Share of the world's banked population reached (Mastercard figure)
- 95%
- Year Mambu acquired Numeral
- 2024
Why CEOs should care
For banks and fintechs already on Mambu, the question is how much work the pre-built connection actually removes. Product and technology leads should ask Mambu and Mastercard when the integration will be generally available, which Mastercard Move services and payout types it covers, and whether pricing and foreign exchange markups are set by Mastercard, by Mambu or by the bank. Nothing in the announcement answers those points yet.
CFOs weighing a cross-border product should compare the cost of this route with what they currently pay through correspondent banks or other payout providers, including integration spend and ongoing fees. Chief risk officers and CISOs should map how payment data will flow between the core platform and Mastercard, who handles sanctions screening and anti-money-laundering checks, and who is accountable when a transfer fails or is delayed. Relying on one core vendor for both deposits and payments connectivity also raises concentration risk that should be documented in third-party risk reviews.
Boards of smaller banks and fintechs should treat this as an option rather than a finished product. The companies are pitching cross-border payments as a way to serve SME and retail customers, but no bank has been named and no volumes have been shared. A sensible step is to ask management for a short business case: expected customer demand, revenue per transfer, and the compliance staffing needed to run it.
The bigger picture
Core banking vendors are adding payments to the software they sell, so that banks can buy more functions from one supplier. Mambu's own timeline shows the pattern: the Numeral acquisition in 2024, Swift Business Connect certification in July 2026, the Intelligent Core launch on September 2, 2026, and now a Mastercard Move connection. For Mastercard, partnerships like this place its money movement network inside the systems banks already use, rather than requiring each bank to integrate on its own.
What’s next
Watch for a general availability date, the first banks to switch on the Mastercard Move connection, and any pricing details. Also watch whether Mambu adds similar pre-built links to other payment networks, which would tell buyers how much choice they keep once payments run through the core platform.
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