Contributors:
Amol Ghemud Published: January 7, 2026
Summary
The G20’s ambitious roadmap to fix cross-border payments by 2027 is failing. Wholesale payment speed targets show only 55% achievement against a 75% goal. Retail payment costs remain stubbornly high across all categories. Legacy infrastructure, regulatory fragmentation, and declining correspondent banking relationships continue to constrain the market. For fintech growth teams, these persistent failures represent strategic positioning opportunities. The companies that understand how to communicate around payment inefficiencies, build trust in alternative solutions, and position themselves as modern infrastructure will capture disproportionate market share as legacy systems fail to meet evolving buyer expectations.
In This Article
Share On:
A fintech CMO recently shared an observation that captures a growing market reality. Their cross-border payments product was objectively superior. Faster settlement, lower fees, and more transparency. Yet enterprise buyers hesitated. The objection was not functionality. It was trust. If global banks and multilateral bodies have struggled to fix cross-border payments for decades, why would a startup succeed?
This scepticism is not irrational. It reflects years of unmet promises, slow infrastructure change, and repeated announcements that failed to deliver meaningful end-user improvements. Buyers have learned to discount innovation claims until they see proof at scale, regulatory resilience, and long-term stability.
Let us explore why cross-border payment modernisation continues to stall, what specific frictions shape buyer hesitation, and how fintech growth teams can position credibility-driven strategies in a trust-constrained market.
Why are cross-border payment targets consistently missed?
The answer is not a lack of awareness or insufficient resources. It is structural complexity that resists incremental improvement.
Legacy infrastructure cannot support modern requirements
Yet migration alone does not solve underlying constraints. Most payment systems still operate on batch processing aligned with local business hours. Real-time monitoring remains limited. Data capacity improvements help, but they cannot eliminate the fundamental architecture designed decades ago for domestic, paper-based processes.
The correspondent banking model compounds these limitations. Transaction chains involving multiple intermediary banks incur costs, delays, and data degradation at each step. Each intermediary applies its own validation checks, operating hour constraints, and fee structures. The system is fundamentally sequential when markets demand parallel, real-time processing.
Regulatory fragmentation increases faster than harmonisation efforts
Cross-border payments navigate multiple legal regimes simultaneously. Different jurisdictions maintain divergent rules for licensing, prudential supervision, AML and CFT requirements, data protection frameworks, capital controls, and sanctions enforcement. These differences are not converging. They are fragmenting further.
The Institute of International Finance highlights a concerning trend toward operational fragmentation driven by diverging home-host standards, geopolitical tensions, and local supervisory measures. This manifests as data localisation requirements that impede firm-wide cybersecurity and fraud monitoring. Infrastructure localisation forces the deployment of technology prescribed by national authorities rather than optimal global solutions. Control localisation splits risk governance across many parties based on local rules, creating duplicative processes and siloed risk views.
De-risking eliminates access faster than new solutions create it
Correspondent banking relationships declined by twenty per cent globally between 2011 and 2018. This de-risking trend sees financial institutions terminating entire regions or customer classes to avoid perceived money laundering or terrorist financing risks rather than managing them.
The practice is economically rational from the individual bank’s perspective but systemically destructive. It severely limits affected entities’ and jurisdictions’ access to the global financial system, particularly in emerging markets and developing economies. De-risked entities often shift to unregulated channels, thereby increasing the very financial integrity risks that initially motivated de-risking.
What specific pain points create the strongest buyer motivation?
Understanding where buyers feel the most acute pain reveals the positioning opportunities with the highest conversion potential.
Cost remains the most visible and measurable friction
The Financial Stability Board’s October 2025 progress report reveals that retail payment costs across different use cases remain far above targets. Business-to-business payments average 1.6 per cent. Business-to-person payments cost 1.8 per cent. Person-to-business transactions run at 1.9 per cent. Person-to-person transfers reach 2.6 per cent. All exceed the sub-one per cent global target substantially.
These costs directly impact business economics. For companies operating on thin margins, payment costs approaching 2% of transaction value represent significant profit erosion. For remittance senders, costs exceeding 8% in some corridors make formal channels economically unviable compared to informal alternatives.
Cost is the easiest pain point to communicate because it is quantifiable, comparable, and immediate. Buyers understand cost savings calculations intuitively. This makes cost-based positioning effective but also commoditises differentiation. Every competitor claims lower costs. Proof becomes essential.
Speed impacts business operations more severely than buyers initially recognise
Only54.6 per cent of wholesale payments were credited within one hour in Q1 2025, far below the 75 per cent target. Retail and remittance payments show similar patterns.
Multi-day settlement times create liquidity challenges for businesses. Working capital gets trapped in transit. Treasury management becomes complex. Suppliers face cash flow constraints that cascade through supply chains. Currency exposure increases during settlement periods, requiring hedging that adds cost.
Yet buyers often underestimate the impact of speed until they experience it. Unlike cost, which is visible in every transaction, speed problems manifest as operational friction, delayed decisions, and opportunity costs that are harder to quantify. This makes speed a powerful differentiator for fintechs, enabling them to educate buyers on total economic impact rather than just settlement-time metrics.
Transparency failures create hidden costs that compound over time
Limited transparency around final costs, foreign exchange rates, processing times, and payment status creates multiple layers of hidden friction. Businesses cannot accurately forecast arrival times. They struggle to reconcile payments. They maintain larger cash buffers to account for uncertainty. They cannot provide reliable delivery promises to their own customers.
These transparency failures generate operational costs that exceed direct transaction fees. Yet they remain largely invisible in payment cost comparisons. Buyers focus on advertised rates without accounting for the operational overhead that opacity creates.
How should fintech growth teams position themselves in response to cross-border payment failures?
The fintech market opportunity is clear. Converting sceptical buyers requires specific positioning strategies that acknowledge past failures whilst building credibility for new solutions.
Lead with education, not product promotion
Buyers already distrust claims of cross-border payment innovation. Traditional marketing, emphasising product benefits, reinforces scepticism rather than overcoming it. Growth teams must shift from promotional messaging to educational content that builds understanding first.
Create content explaining why legacy systems fail structurally, not just operationally. Detail how correspondent banking economics incentivise the very inefficiencies buyers experience. Clarify how regulatory fragmentation creates unavoidable friction that technology alone cannot solve. Acknowledge the limitations of current solutions, including your own.
This transparency-first approach contradicts standard marketing practice. It works in trust-constrained markets because sophisticated buyers research independently. Fintechs that provide honest education proactively build credibility. Those who avoid uncomfortable questions signal evasion.
Frame positioning around specific use case economics, not general capabilities
Different buyer segments experience cross-border payment pain in various ways. Remittance senders care primarily about cost and reliability. E-commerce platforms prioritise speed and reconciliation automation. Treasury teams focus on predictability and working capital efficiency. Supply chain finance demands real-time visibility into status.
Generic positioning around being “faster and cheaper” fails to resonate because it does not connect to specific operational impact. Use case-focused content quantifies the total economic impact for each segment. Show treasury teams how faster settlement reduces working capital requirements by particular percentages. Demonstrate to e-commerce platforms how transparency reduces reconciliation costs and dispute rates. Calculate the cumulative savings for remittance senders across corridors and volumes.
This granular approach requires more content production but generates substantially higher conversion rates. Buyers respond to messaging that reflects their specific operational reality, not industry-wide averages.
Leverage regulatory momentum as market validation, not compliance burden
The ISO 20022 migration, revised FATF standards, and FSB recommendations create regulatory momentum toward modernisation. Most fintechs treat regulatory changes as compliance obligations. Market leaders reframe them as validation that legacy infrastructure is obsolete and new approaches are inevitable.
Content should explain how regulatory mandates acknowledge incumbent failure. Detail why standards bodies are forcing infrastructure upgrades. Connect compliance requirements to the specific pain points they aim to address. Position your solution as aligned with regulatory direction rather than as circumventing it.
This reframing is powerful because it borrows credibility from regulatory bodies. Buyers may distrust fintech claims but generally trust that regulators understand systemic problems. When fintechs position themselves as implementing the solutions regulators are mandating, they gain institutional credibility by association.
Build authority through original research and data, not thought leadership generalities
The cross-border payments market generates enormous data that remains largely unanalysed from buyer perspectives. Transaction success rates by corridor. Real-world settlement time distributions. Hidden cost analyses. Regulatory compliance burden quantification.
Fintechs with transaction visibility can publish original research that provides genuine market insights. This research becomes citable by media, analysts, and buyers. It positions the company as a category authority. It generates inbound interest from buyers seeking to understand their own payment performance against benchmarks.
Original research is expensive and difficult to attribute to the short-term pipeline. It is also the most effective long-term positioning mechanism for building institutional credibility. Fintechs dismissed as startups become market authorities, cited by incumbents once they publish data-driven insights unavailable elsewhere.
Focus on proof over promises
Buyer scepticism stems from decades of unmet promises. Every claim requires proof. Testimonials must include specific metrics. Case studies should detail implementation challenges honestly alongside successes. Pilots should be documented transparently, including failures and learnings.
This proof-first approach slows apparent marketing velocity. It dramatically increases conversion quality. Buyers evaluating multiple vendors consistently choose providers demonstrating operational proof over those making unsubstantiated capability claims.
Case Study Insight: FinTech teams that proactively tackle uninstall triggers achieve higher retention and lower churn over time.
What market dynamics favour fintech positioning now?
Several converging trends create particularly favourable timing for fintech growth strategies focused on cross-border payments.
The widening gap between G20 targets and actual progress increases buyer frustration with incumbents. As the 2027 deadline approaches with targets clearly unmet, procurement teams gain internal justification to explore alternatives they would have dismissed previously.
Stablecoin infrastructure is maturing whilst remaining far from mass adoption. This creates a window where fintechs building on stablecoin rails can position themselves as next-generation without requiring buyers to understand cryptocurrency complexity. By the time mainstream adoption arrives, early movers will have established category leadership.
Central bank digital currencies shift from concept to pilot. CBDC development validates that the current infrastructure is obsolete, whilst creating partnership opportunities for fintechs with relevant technology stacks.
Regulatory fragmentation, whilst operationally challenging, eliminates any possibility that incumbents will solve cross-border payments through coordination alone. This protects fintech positioning. If multinational banks with massive resources cannot navigate regulatory complexity, buyers accept that specialised solutions are necessary.
Conclusion: position for the long game, not the quick win
Cross-border payment modernisation is not a sprint. It is a decade-long infrastructure transition constrained by regulatory complexity, geopolitical fragmentation, and legacy system inertia. The G20 will miss 2027 targets. Incumbents will continue to make promises they cannot deliver. Buyers will remain frustrated.
This persistent market failure is not a problem for fintech growth teams. It is an opportunity. The companies that build positioning strategies around education, transparency, use case specificity, regulatory alignment, and operational proof will capture an increasing share as incumbent credibility erodes.
The temptation is positioning for immediate differentiation through aggressive product claims. The winning strategy is building institutional credibility through patient, evidence-based communication that acknowledges complexity whilst demonstrating measurable progress.
At upGrowth, we help fintech growth teams build content-led positioning strategies that translate technical capabilities into buyer-relevant value narratives. Let’s talk about how your cross-border payment solution can capture market share while the competition continues to miss targets.
Global Transaction Guide
Solving Cross-Border Payment Failures
Optimizing the friction-filled journey of international finance.
The 3 Main Friction Points
🌍
Network Complexity
Fragmented banking systems and “correspondent banking” chains increase the probability of transaction drops and delays.
📑
Compliance Drag
Inconsistent AML and KYC regulations across borders lead to “False Positives,” where legitimate payments are flagged and frozen.
💸
FX Transparency
Hidden currency conversion fees and real-time rate volatility cause “Amount Mismatch” errors at the receiving end.
The upGrowth.in Cross-Border Strategy
Building a seamless global payment experience.
✔
Smart Routing: Dynamically select payment rails (Swift, Local, or Blockchain) based on real-time success rates and cost.
✔
Pre-Validation Tools: Validate account details and compliance requirements *before* initiating the transfer to prevent downstream failures.
✔
Real-Time Tracking: Provide end-to-end visibility for both sender and receiver to reduce “where is my money” support overhead.
Ready to optimize your global payment success rates?
1. Why are G20 cross-border payment targets being missed?
Legacy infrastructure built for domestic batch processing cannot support real-time global requirements. Regulatory fragmentation increases faster than harmonisation efforts. De-risking eliminates correspondent banking relationships faster than new solutions create access. Technology upgrades help, but cannot overcome structural constraints that require coordinated international policy changes.
2. What pain points create the strongest buyer motivation in cross-border payments?
Cost remains most visible, with retail payments averaging one point six to two point six per cent versus sub-one per cent targets. Speed is severely impacted, with only 54.6% of wholesale payments settling within 1 hour. Transparency failures create hidden operational costs that compound over time through reconciliation complexity and working capital inefficiency.
3. How should fintech growth teams position cross-border payment solutions?
Lead with education, explaining why legacy systems fail structurally. Frame positioning around specific use case economics rather than general capabilities. Leverage regulatory momentum as market validation. Build authority through original research and data. Focus on operational proof rather than product promises to overcome buyer scepticism stemming from decades of unmet vendor claims.
4. What role does ISO 20022 migration play in market positioning?
ISO 20022 represents the most significant infrastructure upgrade in decades, replacing legacy MT messages with richer MX format. Fintechs should frame this mandatory migration as a regulatory acknowledgment that current systems are obsolete. Position solutions as aligned with regulatory direction rather than circumventing it to borrow institutional credibility.
5. Why does regulatory fragmentation create fintech opportunities?
Operational fragmentation driven by data, infrastructure, and control localisation makes it impossible for incumbents to solve cross-border payments through coordination alone. This protects fintech positioning by validating that specialised solutions are necessary. Buyers accept that multinational banks cannot navigate regulatory complexity, creating openings for focused alternatives.
6. How can fintechs build credibility in trust-constrained markets?
Publish educational content that honestly acknowledges solution limitations. Create use-case-specific analyses quantifying the total economic impact. Develop original research using transaction data to provide genuine market insights. Document implementations transparently include challenges alongside successes. Build proof libraries with specific metrics rather than generic testimonials.
For Curious Minds
The correspondent banking model creates a sequential, multi-step process that is inherently slow and expensive. Each intermediary bank in the chain introduces its own fees, compliance checks, and operational delays, fundamentally clashing with modern demands for real-time, transparent transactions. This structural inefficiency is the primary friction fintechs address. The system's limitations include:
Sequential Processing: Transactions move from one bank to the next instead of in parallel, held up by different operating hours and batch processing schedules.
Cost Accumulation: Each intermediary adds its own fee, making the final cost unpredictable and high for the end user.
Data Degradation: Payment information can be lost or altered as it passes through legacy systems, complicating reconciliation and compliance screening.
Your ability to offer a parallel, real-time processing alternative directly counters these legacy constraints. Explore how to articulate this value proposition beyond simple speed.
De-risking is the practice of financial institutions terminating relationships with entire regions or customer classes to avoid, rather than manage, perceived compliance risks. While economically rational for an individual bank, this creates severe systemic problems by cutting off legitimate entities from the global financial system. This creates a vacuum that fintechs can fill while also navigating higher integrity risks. The negative consequences are significant:
It limits financial access for emerging markets and developing economies, stifling economic growth.
It forces de-risked entities toward unregulated channels, which ironically increases money laundering and terrorist financing risks.
It contributes to the decline in correspondent banking, which fell twenty per cent globally between 2011 and 2018.
Understanding this trend is key to positioning your solution as one that promotes financial inclusion safely. Read the full analysis to learn how to build a risk management framework that reassures partners.
Enterprise buyers prioritize trust and long-term stability over purely functional benefits because they have been conditioned by decades of unfulfilled promises in cross-border payments. A superior product on its own is not enough; you must demonstrate that your company is a resilient and reliable partner. Your go-to-market strategy must be built on credibility, not just capability. Key evaluative factors for buyers include:
Regulatory Resilience: How well does your platform navigate divergent international rules for AML, data protection, and capital controls?
Long-Term Viability: What proof do you have of sustainable funding, a stable business model, and the operational capacity to handle payments at scale?
Infrastructure Stability: Is your architecture truly built for real-time processing, or is it a modern layer on top of legacy constraints?
Proving your resilience in these areas is the only way to overcome the market's inherent skepticism. Discover how to build a narrative that effectively communicates this stability.
The sharp decline in correspondent banking relationships is concrete evidence of the de-risking trend, where global banks retreat from regions they perceive as high-risk. This twenty per cent reduction creates significant gaps in global financial access, particularly for developing economies. For fintechs, this is both an opportunity and a major hurdle. While it opens a market need, it also means you are building networks in environments that established players have already deemed too risky or complex. You must prove that your risk management and compliance frameworks are superior to those of the banks that have exited, a very high bar for a new entrant. This market history directly fuels enterprise buyer skepticism about a startup's ability to succeed where large institutions have withdrawn. Learn more about the specific strategies required to build trust in these de-risked corridors.
The trend toward operational fragmentation, as noted by the Institute of International Finance, directly undermines a fintech's ability to build a unified, efficient global payment system. These localization rules force companies to adopt suboptimal, country-specific solutions instead of a cohesive global one. This regulatory divergence increases both cost and complexity. Three key barriers emerge:
Data Localisation: Requirements to store and process data within a country's borders impede firm-wide cybersecurity and fraud monitoring.
Infrastructure Localisation: Mandates to use nationally prescribed technology prevent the deployment of more advanced, globally consistent platforms.
Control Localisation: Risk governance is split across many local entities, creating siloed views and duplicative compliance processes.
Navigating this fragmented landscape is a core challenge. The complete article explores how to design a flexible architecture that accommodates these local requirements.
Since technical upgrades like ISO 20022 do not resolve core issues like batch processing, fintechs must provide evidence that their entire model is built differently. Buyers need proof of institutional stability, not just a better messaging format. Your evidence must address their fear of partnering with a startup that might fail. Focus on providing concrete proof points in three areas:
Architectural Resilience: Offer technical deep dives and audited reports that confirm your system is truly real-time and not built on legacy rails.
Financial Stability: Be transparent about your funding, runway, and key financial health metrics. Share your long-term business plan under NDA to demonstrate viability.
Ecosystem Endorsement: Showcase partnerships with major financial institutions, testimonials from large enterprise clients, and any certifications from regulatory bodies.
These forms of evidence shift the conversation from features to foundation. The full article details how to package this proof for maximum impact.
Overcoming enterprise skepticism requires shifting your focus from product features to demonstrating institutional trustworthiness and resilience. A credibility-driven strategy is essential in a market wary of innovation claims. Prove you are a stable partner, not just a superior solution provider. A practical, three-step plan includes:
Showcase Regulatory Mastery: Go beyond basic compliance. Proactively publish detailed white papers on how you navigate complex issues like regulatory fragmentation and de-risking.
Provide Proof at Scale: Use case studies that feature not just transaction speed but also your system's resilience during market volatility and flawless processing at high volumes.
Build a Network of Trust: Secure partnerships with established, trusted financial institutions or regulators, as these endorsements act as powerful signals of your viability.
This approach directly addresses the core objections buyers have. Dive deeper into the article for more on crafting a narrative that builds deep market trust.
To effectively manage regulatory fragmentation, fintechs must embed adaptability directly into their product architecture and compliance operations from day one. A rigid, centralized model is destined to fail as national rules diverge. The key is a 'global core, local controls' approach that balances efficiency with compliance. A stepwise plan involves:
Build a Configurable Rules Engine: Design a compliance engine where rules for AML and data handling can be configured on a per-jurisdiction basis without altering the core platform.
Develop a Global Policy Framework: Create a high-level global policy that sets the minimum standard, then layer on specific, stricter local requirements for each market.
Invest in Regulatory Intelligence: Establish a function to monitor regulatory changes across all operating regions in real-time to proactively adjust your controls.
This proactive and modular design proves to buyers that you can handle complexity. Learn more about implementing this framework in the complete guide.
Increasing regulatory fragmentation means a one-size-fits-all global product is no longer viable. Fintechs must shift from designing a single, optimal global solution to creating a modular and adaptable platform. Future success depends on architectural flexibility and deep regional expertise, not just technological superiority. Key strategic adjustments include:
Adopt a Modular Architecture: Design your core platform to easily plug in country-specific modules for compliance, data reporting, and infrastructure integration.
Prioritize Regional Compliance Hubs: Instead of centralized governance, build out regional teams with deep expertise in local legal regimes to manage diverging home-host standards.
Forge Local Partnerships: Partner with local banks and regulatory bodies to gain credibility and navigate unique market requirements, turning a barrier into an advantage.
This adaptable approach is critical for long-term resilience. The full content provides a framework for building this flexibility into your strategic planning.
The mandatory migration to ISO 20022 is more than a technical upgrade; it is a strategic opportunity to redefine value in cross-border payments. The richer, structured data in MX messages allows for services that are impossible with legacy MT messages. Fintechs can use this data to move beyond speed and cost to offer superior intelligence and automation. Key opportunities include:
Enhanced Compliance Screening: Use detailed originator and beneficiary information for more accurate and efficient AML and sanctions checks, reducing false positives.
Automated Reconciliation: Provide straight-through processing by using remittance data to automate invoice matching for enterprise clients.
Predictive Analytics: Offer clients insights into payment statuses, potential delays, and cash flow forecasting based on the rich transaction data.
This transition allows you to build a compelling case for your platform's long-term value. Discover how to build a product roadmap that capitalizes on this shift.
The most common mistake is assuming that a functionally superior product will sell itself. In the cross-border payments market, enterprise buyers' primary concern is not a lack of features but a lack of trust in a startup's ability to deliver reliably and survive long-term. Your marketing must address this trust deficit head-on. To pivot, shift your narrative from "what our product does" to "why you can depend on our company":
Problem: Marketing that highlights lower fees and faster settlement.
Solution: Marketing that highlights your robust compliance frameworks and secure, scalable infrastructure.
Problem: Focusing on innovation claims.
Solution: Focusing on proof points of stability, such as successful high-volume processing and partnerships with established institutions.
This pivot from a product-led to a trust-led message is essential for winning over hesitant buyers. Explore the full article for a guide to building this narrative.
Enterprise skepticism is rooted in the immense structural complexity of global payments, which has resisted decades of reform attempts from even the largest institutions. Buyers have seen too many promised revolutions fail. Your challenge is to prove you have solved problems at their architectural core, not just at the surface. The primary complexities that fuel this doubt are:
Legacy Infrastructure: Most systems still rely on batch processing tied to local business hours, a fundamental flaw that superficial upgrades do not fix.
Sequential Validation: The correspondent banking model involves multiple, sequential handoffs, each creating delays and data degradation.
Regulatory Fragmentation: An ever-growing web of divergent national rules makes a single, seamless global solution seem unrealistic.
To build trust, you must offer transparent demonstrations of your end-to-end, real-time architecture. Read on to see how to structure these proofs of concept.
Amol has helped catalyse business growth with his strategic & data-driven methodologies. With a decade of experience in the field of marketing, he has donned multiple hats, from channel optimization, data analytics and creative brand positioning to growth engineering and sales.
Growth Strategy and Planning
