/payments

News and resources on payments systems, innovations and initiatives worldwide.

CPMI sets out plan to fix 'slow, expensive, unreliable' cross-border payments

The emergence of new players such as Libra has thrown into sharp relief how slow, expensive and unreliable traditional cross-border payments can be, says a Bank for International Settlement committee report which also offers some ideas for improving the situation.

1 comment

CPMI sets out plan to fix 'slow, expensive, unreliable' cross-border payments

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

BIS's Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) has put together the report in response to Saudi Arabia making the improvement of cross-border payments a priority of its G20 presidency.

The report offers 19 building blocks for resolving the longstanding frictions and challenges in cross-border payments, which have been left behind by improvements in domestic payments and could soon be disrupted by new entrants such as Libra.

The stated aim is to make them faster, cheaper, more transparent and inclusive. To do this, the report highlights five focus areas: a commitment to a joint public and private sector vision; regulatory, supervisory and oversight coordination; improvement of existing payment infrastructures; enhancing data quality; and exploring the potential of new payment infrastructures.

Jon Cunliffe, CPMI chair and deputy governor of the Bank of England says cross-border payments need to be brought into line with the "standards, efficiency and reliability that users now have a right to expect".

Continues Cunliffe: "Faster, cheaper, more transparent and more inclusive cross-border payment services would have widespread benefits for citizens and businesses worldwide, supporting economic growth, international trade, global development and financial inclusion."



The report is the second of a three-stage process. The Financial Stability Board will now coordinate a full roadmap to be delivered to G20 finance minister and central bank governors in October.

Read the full report:

Download the document now 787 kb (Chrome HTML Document)
Sponsored [Webinar] AI in Banking: Building Compliant and Safe Enterprise AI at Scale

Comments: (1)

Russell Bell

Russell Bell Director at Fastbase Ltd

I assume focus area E "new payment infrastructures and arrangements" in the report encompasses payment via blockchain ..."So far, these have not been implemented broadly; some are still in their design phase and others remain theoretical.  Hence their potential to enhance cross-border payments cannot yet be fully assessed."

Some others not mentioned in this report do provide reduction in payment friction of an altogether comprehensive nature, and progressed from theory to reality long since.  The reasons why despite this they've achieved little market penetration are worth exploring.

[New Impact Study] Mastering the Transition to ISO 20022: Strategies for Compliance and Automated TeFinextra Promoted[New Impact Study] Mastering the Transition to ISO 20022: Strategies for Compliance and Automated Testing in Financial Services