Jo Yeo

Cross-border payments are the lifeblood of the global economy, underpinning trade, remittances, investment and financial connectivity. As technology has advanced and economies have become increasingly interconnected, expectations for international transfers have evolved too. Progress has been made, with 75% of payments travelling over Swift reaching destination banks within just 10 minutes. But frictions remain, particularly at the ‘last mile’ of a payments journey, where 80% of the total time is spent before it is credited to the end account or wallet.

Emerging technologies, including blockchain, promise a real-time, 24/7 reality. But innovation in cross-border payments will not come from new rails alone. It will emerge from steady progress in resolving structural frictions - improving data quality, harmonising standards, strengthening coordination and enhancing transparency across the value chain.

In this interactive session hosted by Swift, experts will discuss the structural frictions identified in Swift’s Payment Optimisation Index and provide practical insights on what institutions can do to improve the overall speed and transparency of cross-border payments.

Merchants today operate in a global marketplace where customers expect seamless payment experiences across borders and currencies. Yet, fragmented payment rails and incompatible acceptance infrastructure continue to create friction, leaving merchants to navigate a maze of disconnected solutions. Achieving interoperability in cross-border merchant payments (P2M) remains elusive, as technical barriers and commercial interests perpetuate silos that undermine efficiency and trust.

While consensus exists that interoperability is desirable, the critical question is how to make interoperable P2M both commercially viable and technically sustainable across jurisdictions.

This design thinking workshop at Point Zero Forum (PZF) builds on the inaugural session at the GFTN Forum Japan, where senior stakeholders from financial services, fintechs, and policy circles convened to identify key challenges and opportunities. Preliminary recommendations from that dialogue included:

Commercial and Design Policies

·     Creating merchant-friendly universal standards for onboarding and settlement models

·      Designing incentives to encourage adoption of interoperable systems

·      Ensuring transparency of fees and predictability of settlement timelines

Technical Uplifts

·      Addressing critical risks including AML, data protection, and privacy through design architecture

·      Establishing robust API-driven technical architectures for P2M

·      Leveraging emerging technologies such as DLT to simplify and streamline cross-border transactions

At PZF, participants will revisit these foundational insights and engage in deeper exploration of the commercial and technical dimensions of interoperability. The workshop will focus on aligning standards, rethinking incentive structures, and developing top two actionable recommendations per category (commercial/technical) that move the needle on P2M interoperability. These recommendations would be further tested and finessed at the third design thinking workshop at the Singapore FinTech Festival. A proposed outcome of the workshops is a policy Insights Report to be published by GFTN.