Visa Inc. has completed its acquisition of Earthport, a company that provides cross border payment services to banks, money transfer services and business.

In a company press release, Visa said the acquisition will allow it to expand its current capabilities to enable businesses, governments and consumers worldwide to send and receive money through bank accounts.

Visa agreed in December to buy Earthport for about $250.6 million, but had to fend off a competing offer from Mastercard, until the latter company dropped out of the bidding war in March and acquired cross-border transfer company Transfast, instead.  Visa did not disclose the terms of its final agreement for Earthport.

The acquisition of Earthport enables Visa to reach the majority of the banked population around the world, and expands the use cases for its Visa Direct product to include funds disbursement, P2P transactions, cross border-payments, bill payment and marketplace payouts.

"Visa is modernizing the way we move by making it quicker, safer and easier to pay and be paid than ever before," Bill Sheley, head of global push payments at Visa, said in the release. "The acquisition of Earthport unleashes the power of Visa by taking us 'beyond the card' — empowering us to enable our clients to make payments through bank accounts around the world."