Wise (formerly TransferWise) processed $118 billion in cross-border transfers in the twelve months ending March 2024. The company’s average transfer fee was 0.62%, compared to the global average for cross-border remittances of approximately 6.2%, according to the World Bank. A migrant worker sending $500 from London to Lagos through a traditional bank pays roughly $31 in fees. Through Wise, the same transfer costs approximately $3.10. That ten-fold cost difference is not a pricing gimmick. It is the result of technology infrastructure that routes money more efficiently than the correspondent banking network that has handled cross-border payments since the 1970s.
Cross-border payments represent one of the last major financial services categories to be disrupted by technology. According to Grand View Research, the global digital payment solutions market was valued at $114.41 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $361.30 billion by 2030 at a 21.4% CAGR. Cross-border payments, which the Bank for International Settlements estimated at $182 trillion in total annual volume, represent a significant portion of that market. The technology that will handle those trillions is being rebuilt from the ground up.
Why Cross-Border Payments Are Expensive and Slow
The current cross-border payment system operates through correspondent banking, a network of bilateral relationships between banks in different countries. When a business in New York sends a payment to a supplier in Bangkok, the money does not travel directly. It passes through a chain of intermediary banks, each of which takes a fee, adds processing time, and introduces the possibility of errors.
The Boston Consulting Group projects fintech revenues will reach $1.5 trillion by 2030, with embedded finance and digital lending accounting for the largest share of projected growth.
According to CB Insights’ 2024 fintech report, global fintech funding declined 40 percent between 2022 and 2024, pushing the sector toward consolidation and a sharper focus on profitability over growth at all costs.
The typical path for a cross-border wire transfer involves four to six banks. The sender’s bank debits the account and sends a SWIFT message (the messaging standard used by 11,000+ financial institutions globally) to its correspondent bank. That correspondent bank may not have a direct relationship with a bank in the destination country, so it routes the payment through another intermediary. Each bank in the chain performs its own compliance checks (sanctions screening, anti-money laundering), applies its own currency conversion rates, and deducts its own fees. The process takes one to five business days and costs an average of 1.5% for business payments and 6.2% for consumer remittances.
Three structural problems make this system expensive. First, the multiple intermediaries each take a margin. A payment that passes through four banks accumulates four sets of fees. Second, currency conversion happens at non-transparent rates. Each bank in the chain applies its own exchange rate markup, and the sender often cannot see the total cost until the recipient receives the payment. Third, the compliance overhead is duplicated at each step. Every intermediary bank performs its own KYC and AML checks on the same transaction, creating redundant processing that adds cost and delay.
The New Cross-Border Payment Infrastructure
Technology companies and fintech platforms are building alternatives to correspondent banking that address each of these structural problems. Four approaches are competing to become the dominant cross-border payment infrastructure.
Multi-currency networks. Wise operates a network of local bank accounts in over 80 countries. When a customer sends money from the UK to India, Wise does not actually move money across borders. Instead, the customer deposits pounds into Wise’s UK bank account. Wise then pays out the equivalent amount in rupees from its Indian bank account. The transfer appears instant to the customer because no money actually crosses a border. Wise rebalances its local accounts periodically to maintain liquidity. This model eliminates correspondent banking fees entirely, which is why Wise can charge 0.62% while banks charge 1.5% or more.
Real-time payment network interconnection. India’s UPI and Singapore’s PayNow are connected through a bilateral linkage that allows instant transfers between the two countries. Similar linkages are being built between other national real-time payment systems. The ASEAN region is working toward connecting the real-time payment networks of Thailand (PromptPay), Malaysia (DuitNow), the Philippines (InstaPay), Indonesia (QRIS), and Vietnam (VietQR). These interconnections create a network of networks that enables cross-border payments at domestic speed and cost.
Blockchain-based settlement. Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product uses the XRP token as a bridge currency for cross-border payments. A payment from Mexico to the Philippines converts pesos to XRP, transfers the XRP across the Ripple network in seconds, and converts to Philippine pesos at the destination. The process eliminates the need for pre-funded nostro accounts (the bank accounts that correspondent banks maintain in foreign currencies). Visa’s B2B Connect uses blockchain technology for institutional cross-border payments, processing transactions in near real-time instead of the traditional multi-day settlement.
Stablecoin payments. USDC and USDT (stablecoins pegged to the US dollar) are increasingly used for cross-border business payments, particularly in emerging markets where access to dollar banking is limited. Circle, the issuer of USDC, has positioned the stablecoin as a cross-border payment rail, processing over $12 trillion in on-chain transactions in 2024. Stablecoin payments settle in minutes on blockchain networks, compared to days through correspondent banking. The challenge is regulatory acceptance, which varies significantly by country.
Who Is Building the Future
The cross-border payment market is attracting investment from both fintech companies and established financial institutions.
Wise is the largest independent cross-border payment platform, with 12.8 million active customers and $118 billion in annual volume. The company is publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange and has built its own payment infrastructure, Wise Platform, which other banks and fintech companies can use to offer cross-border payments to their own customers.
Stripe has expanded aggressively into cross-border payments through its global payment infrastructure. A merchant using Stripe can accept payments in 135+ currencies and receive settlements in their local currency. Stripe handles currency conversion, local payment method support, and regulatory compliance across markets through a single integration.
Airwallex, a Melbourne-based fintech valued at $5.6 billion, provides cross-border payment infrastructure for businesses. The company operates accounts in 60+ currencies and offers international payment processing at rates significantly below traditional banks. Airwallex’s platform is used by other fintech companies, marketplaces, and enterprises that need to move money across borders efficiently.
SWIFT, the incumbent messaging network, is not standing still. SWIFT GPI (Global Payments Innovation), launched in 2017, provides end-to-end payment tracking and commits to same-day delivery for cross-border payments. Over 4,000 financial institutions now use GPI, and SWIFT reports that 50% of GPI payments are credited within 30 minutes. SWIFT is also testing blockchain-based tokenised asset settlement through its network, recognising that the technology threatening its dominance could also strengthen it if adopted within the existing network.
The Regulatory Dimension
Regulation shapes cross-border payment technology in ways that differ from domestic payments. Every cross-border transaction involves at least two regulatory jurisdictions, and the requirements can conflict.
The G20 has made cross-border payment improvement a priority. In 2020, the Financial Stability Board published a roadmap for enhancing cross-border payments with specific targets: reducing costs to no more than 3% for remittances (versus the current 6.2% average), achieving settlement within one hour, and increasing transparency so that senders know the total cost before initiating a transfer. Progress toward these targets has been gradual. The technology exists to meet them. The regulatory harmonisation required to deploy that technology across jurisdictions is the bottleneck.
Anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance add particular complexity to cross-border payments. A payment from Germany to Kenya must comply with EU regulations, German national regulations, Kenyan regulations, and any applicable sanctions regimes. Each jurisdiction’s requirements differ in specificity and enforcement. AI-powered compliance systems help by automating screening across multiple regulatory frameworks simultaneously, but the underlying regulatory fragmentation remains a cost driver.
Statista projects global digital payment transaction volume will reach $36.09 trillion by 2030. A growing share of that volume will be cross-border as global e-commerce expands and remote work creates more international payroll flows. The companies that build the most efficient, compliant, and reliable cross-border payment infrastructure will capture a disproportionate share of that growth.
What the Future Looks Like
The cross-border payment experience in five years will be materially different from today. Four changes are highly probable based on current technology and investment trajectories.
Fees will drop below 1% for most corridors. Competition from Wise, Airwallex, and real-time payment network interconnections is already compressing margins. As more corridors gain direct connections between national payment systems, the correspondent banking fees that inflate costs will be bypassed entirely.
Settlement will approach real time for major corridors. The India-Singapore UPI-PayNow linkage already demonstrates that instant cross-border settlement is technically feasible. As more bilateral and multilateral linkages are built, the multi-day settlement that characterises current cross-border payments will become the exception rather than the norm.
Transparency will become standard. Senders will know the exact cost and delivery time before initiating a transfer, just as they do with domestic payments. Hidden fees embedded in exchange rate markups, the primary revenue mechanism for traditional banks in cross-border payments, will become unsustainable as competing platforms make their pricing transparent.
The distinction between domestic and cross-border payments will blur. For the end user, sending money to someone in another country will feel the same as sending it to someone across the street: instant, inexpensive, and invisible in its complexity. The infrastructure required to achieve that simplicity is being built now by the companies and institutions described above. The $182 trillion cross-border payment market is being re-plumbed, and the new pipes are digital.
