Understanding Cross‑Border Payments: Trends and Technology in 2025

Cross‑border payments, the movement of money from one country to another, sit at the heart of global trade, remittances and modern business. They require FX and compliance checks and run on bank, fintech, or stablecoin cross-border payments rails. In 2025, modern cross-border payment technology uses APIs and real-time networks to cut fees and delays.

They are enormous in scale: McKinsey’s Global Payments Map shows that lower‑value flows alone accounted for roughly ten per cent of the $179 trillion in cross‑border payments processed in 2024, and more than one‑third of the revenue pool comes from these smaller tickets. Yet the systems used to send money abroad have changed little since the correspondent banking model was built decades ago. Businesses and individuals still contend with opaque fees, currency conversion mark‑ups, sluggish settlement and complex compliance.

The industry is now at an inflexion point as emerging technologies, new regulatory pressures, and growing demand for low‑cost international payments converge. Due is a modern, stablecoin-ready alternative to legacy payment rails, international, built to deliver low-cost international payments at speed and scale. This article explores what cross‑border payments are, why they have remained so challenging, and the trends, technologies and providers shaping the landscape in 2025 and beyond.

What Are Cross‑Border Payments?

Definition and Common Use Cases

At their simplest, cross‑border payments are transactions where the payer and recipient are located in different countries. Cross-border payment technology often requires currency conversion and specialised payment processing, making it more complex than domestic transfers. Payment platforms increasingly serve merchants selling across borders, employers paying remote contractors, and marketplaces disbursing funds to creators in multiple currencies.

Definition and Common Use Cases

Cross-border payments cover remittances between families, e-commerce purchases from foreign merchants, marketplace and gig-worker payouts, B2B invoices and supplier payments, payroll for remote contractors, and interbank/treasury settlements, flows that cross currencies and jurisdictions, so FX conversion and compliance screening are usually required.

Traditional Payment Rails (SWIFT, Correspondent Banking)

SWIFT messaging and correspondent banking route funds through multiple intermediaries with nostro/vostro accounts. Each hop can add FX spreads, fees, and delay, plus manual sanctions and AML checks. Status is often opaque, and settlement typically takes days rather than minutes. Each intermediary debits and credits nostro and vostro accounts before reaching the recipient’s bank. The model was built for a pre‑digital era, and it introduces layers of cost and delay. In practice, cross‑border payment flows involve multiple intermediaries and can take up to one to five business days to settle.

Legacy rails also impose manual or semi‑automated anti‑money‑laundering (AML), know‑your‑customer (KYC) and sanctions checks, adding further friction. Fees are embedded at several points: McKinsey reports that large corporates pay one to three per cent of transaction value for cross‑border business‑to‑business (B2B) payments, while small and medium‑sized enterprises (SMEs) may pay over five per cent. Remittances fare little better: the average cost of sending US$200 abroad was 6.2% in 2023, double the United Nations’ goal of three percent.

The Challenges of Traditional Cross‑Border Payments

Cross-border payments remain costly and slow, with limited visibility and high failure rates. Multiple intermediaries, FX mark-ups, and fragmented compliance create friction that SMEs feel most acutely. The result: unpredictable delivery times, reconciliation headaches, and material leakage on small tickets.

The World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide database underscores the problem: sending small sums abroad still costs more than six per cent of the principal. For companies importing goods or paying overseas partners, mark‑ups on the mid‑market exchange rate can make cross‑border payments far more expensive than domestic equivalents. SMEs using correspondent banking channels may face total costs of five per cent or more per transaction, eroding margins on slim profit‑generating activities.

High FX Fees and Hidden Costs

Headline fees can look low, but pricing often hides in the FX rate. Mark-ups on the mid-market rate, plus wire and intermediary charges, lift total cost, especially on SME and remittance flows, making international transfers far pricier than domestic equivalents.

Slow Settlement Times

Legacy systems batch and net transactions; they operate only during business hours and across time zones. McKinsey notes that many cross‑border payments require one to five business days to clear. A report from Payments Dive highlights that stablecoins appeal partly because they can settle remittances and payouts in real time, whereas legacy networks such as SWIFT and MoneyGram can take days. Slow settlement undermines working capital management and cash‑flow forecasting for exporters and freelancers, while consumers sending urgent remittances suffer as funds are trapped in transit.

Compliance and Regulatory Hurdles

Payments cross jurisdictions with different AML, sanctions, and data-handling rules. SWIFT emphasises that regulators and customers now expect payments that are fast, transparent and accessible, yet banks must still satisfy stringent reporting obligations. The complexity of correspondent banking networks introduces a lack of transparency on payment status; merchants often cannot tell where funds are or why a payment failed.

Cross-Border Payment Trends (2025)

Four shifts define cross-border payment trends: API-first platforms, real-time corridor linkages, ISO 20022’s richer data, and tokenised cash rails alongside fiat. Together, they compress costs, shorten settlement, and improve end-to-end visibility for businesses of every size.

Zooming out, this API-first shift reflects broader cross-border payment trends: real-time corridors linking domestic schemes, ISO 20022 hitting critical mass, digital wallets nearing half of e-commerce, and tokenised cash emerging alongside fiat. SWIFT calls 2025 a “golden era of innovation,” as cloud, open APIs and distributed-ledger tooling help banks and fintechs streamline operations and deliver more dynamic, personalised services.

On the demand side, Visa notes that money movement is increasingly treated as a rich data exchange rather than a simple value transfer, and that businesses now expect cross-border payment technology that feels as straightforward as domestic ones, especially when embedded directly into software via APIs.

Put together, this is why SaaS platforms, marketplaces, and fintechs are standardising on APIs for the heavy lifting, embedding payout creation, mid-market currency conversion, instant fee calculations, and automatic reconciliation straight into product flows.

Real‑Time Settlement (RTP, ISO 20022 Adoption)

For Due, the real-time push is practical, not theoretical: its API lets platforms collect in local rails (e.g., PIX, ACH, SEPA) and settle to stablecoins like USDC/EURC or back to fiat in a single flow. That design makes it easier to tap instant schemes where they exist, while keeping treasury flexible across currencies and networks.

Meanwhile, public-sector infrastructure is linking up. Singapore’s PayNow and India’s UPI were connected in February 2023, creating a live cross-border real-time corridor that enables low-cost instant transfers between the two countries.

The data layer is modernising too. ISO 20022 is reaching critical mass in 2025: the Fedwire Funds Service moved to ISO 20022 on July 14, 2025, and SWIFT ends the MT/ISO coexistence for cross-border payment instructions on 22 November 2025. Together, those milestones push richer, structured data into the flow of low-cost international payments.

Practically, that richer payload matters: industry guidance highlights that ISO 20022’s structured fields enable better compliance screening, fewer exceptions, and more automated reconciliation, which lowers operational cost.

Stablecoins and Blockchain Adoption

Stablecoins, which are tokenised cash pegged to a fiat currency and issued on public blockchains, are emerging as a serious alternative to legacy settlement rails. McKinsey observes that stablecoin circulation has doubled over the past 18 months, yet still accounts for less than 1% of global payment solutions, with roughly $30 billion in daily transactions. McKinsey & Company Advocates argue that stablecoins transcend banking hours and borders, improving speed, cost, transparency, and availability. Due echoes in its explainer contrasting stablecoins’ price stability and programmability with Bitcoin’s volatility for everyday payments and treasury use cases.

Payments Dive reports that PayPal’s Xoom has begun settling cross-border remittances in PYUSD, aiming to bypass traditional banking hours and market lower transaction costs. While stablecoins currently process around US$20–30 billion in daily transactions, the momentum suggests that tokenised money could become a mainstream component of cross‑border payment technology.

Cross-Border Payment Technology

Blockchain in Cross-Border Payments

Distributed ledger technology (DLT), the foundation of blockchain in cross-border payments, removes the need for multiple intermediaries by recording transactions on a shared ledger that all participants can verify. The PYMNTS Blockchain Payments Tracker points out that DLT can make cross‑border payments leaner, more efficient and more transparent. Intermediaries and reconciliation layers disappear because the ledger itself provides a verifiable record of payment. Permissioned decentralised finance (DeFi) networks could deliver cost savings of up to 80% on cross‑border transactions, thanks to near‑instant settlement and reduced operational overhead. Our diagram below contrasts the traditional correspondent banking path with a blockchain‑based route:

Under the old model, funds travel through correspondent banks with multiple debit/credit legs; each step adds fees and delays. The blockchain path replaces this chain with a shared ledger where the sender and recipient interact directly, in step with cross-border trends toward instant-payment linkages (e.g., UPI–PayNow), ISO 20022’s richer data, and stablecoin rails, enabling immediate confirmation and settlement. Smart contracts can encode release conditions, escrow and compliance checks in code, further automating the process.

AI/ML for Fraud Prevention and Compliance

Due is built for speed, but it keeps the guardrails on. The company verifies every account (KYC/AML) and positions its API so businesses can collect via local rails like PIX, ACH, and SEPA or settle in regulated stablecoins (e.g., USDC/EURC) while Due handles the compliance plumbing in the background. That lets customers pair fast settlement with the screening stacks they already trust, network-level controls on card rails, bank risk engines, or third-party RegTech, as they scale cross-border.

Across the industry, settlement getting faster has also widened the attack surface. Visa’s threat brief notes rising sophistication in organised fraud, and that’s exactly why real-time behavioural analytics and machine-learning risk models have become standard in international corridors.

SWIFT has been explicit that AI is now central to productivity and security, as richer data and API connectivity reshape cross-border payment trends. Meanwhile, networks are publishing hard numbers: Mastercard’s Decision Intelligence (and the new DI Pro) applies AI to score transactions in ~50 ms and, in initial modelling, boosts fraud detection by ~20% on average, with far higher gains in some cases; the company also says its latest models evaluate up to one trillion data points.

API Integration with SaaS & E-commerce

Modern businesses do not want to manage bank routing codes and SWIFT messages; they want payment tools woven into their existing workflows. Digital‑first providers expose cross‑border payment technology via RESTful APIs that integrate directly with accounting software, enterprise resource planning systems, marketplaces and gig‑economy platforms.

This integration means that a marketplace can quote an international seller in multiple currencies and pay out earnings via low‑cost international payments in 2025 in a single API call. Visa remarks that partnerships between financial institutions and new payment networks are creating a world where money can move as freely as information. Fintechs are also building developer ecosystems around their APIs; Stripe, for example, offers a cross‑border payouts API that automatically handles conversion and compliance, while Wise’s platform enables other banks to offer its low‑cost global payment solution. Due’s architecture follows this pattern by offering multi‑currency and stablecoin accounts accessible through simple, well‑documented APIs.

Industry Use Cases of Modern Cross‑Border Payments

Startups and SMEs Going Global

Smaller firms stand to benefit the most from modern cross‑border payment solutions. McKinsey’s research shows that nontraditional providers captured up to 65 % of the value of international peer‑to‑peer transfers in 2024, while about half of SMEs and mid‑corporates surveyed used a fintech or nontraditional player for cross‑border payments in the past year. For cash‑strapped startups expanding overseas, digital platforms offering multi‑currency accounts, real‑time FX rates and transparent pricing provide a competitive edge. Cross‑border B2B payments are projected to grow at a 6% compound annual rate through 2030, with fintech and payment‑orchestration providers enabling faster settlement and lower fees. Startups serving international clients can now bill in the customer’s currency, settle locally or in stablecoins and sweep funds back to their home currency instantly, reducing foreign‑exchange risk and improving cash flow.

Within that context, Due positions its fees very aggressively for small teams: the company states 0.2–0.3% on many cross-border B2B routes (via stablecoin/local-rail flows) and under 1% for international merchant processing. Startups billing global clients can invoice in the customer’s currency, settle locally or in USDC/EURC, and then sweep back to home currency when it’s advantageous, reducing FX risk and improving cash flow.

E‑commerce and Gig‑Economy Platforms

Platforms like Amazon, Shopify, and Uber live or die by the cost and reliability of cross-border payment technology for global sellers, drivers and creators. One big tailwind: digital wallets now carry roughly half of online checkout. Worldpay’s 2024 report puts wallets at about 50% of global e-commerce value in 2023, which normalises wallet-to-wallet payouts across markets.

For marketplaces and gig platforms that need to move lots of small amounts, stablecoins add another option: programmable, 24/7 rails with low network fees that can support micro-payouts across borders. Due’s own explainer lays out why stablecoins (USDC/EURC) fit day-to-day payouts better than volatile assets, especially when you need predictable unit pricing at scale. In practice, providers expose this through APIs; Due offers Global Accounts (virtual local details in USD/EUR/GBP/MXN, etc.) alongside a Stablecoin Payments API, so platforms can pay sellers or workers in USDC/EURC/USDT globally or in local currency across 80+ markets, all from the same integration.

Comparing Providers: Old Rails vs New Solutions

In 2025, the market for cross‑border payments is crowded with incumbents and challengers. The following table compares the characteristics of traditional banks and SWIFT, leading fintechs (e.g., Wise, Payoneer, Stripe) and Due’s own proposition.

In the legacy column, settlement times remain measured in days, and costs are high due to multiple intermediaries. Fintechs like Wise and Stripe offer low‑cost international payments in 2025 with transparent pricing and faster settlement, but they still rely on existing rails for final clearing. Due’s differentiators include real‑time multi‑currency settlement, integration with stablecoin cross‑border payments and a developer‑centric platform that embeds compliance and FX into API calls.

Banks and SWIFT vs Fintechs (Wise, Payoneer, Stripe)

Banks and the SWIFT network still set the baseline for reach, compliance depth, and enterprise treasury services. But on price transparency and developer experience, specialist fintechs have changed expectations. McKinsey notes that competition in lower-value cross-border flows has intensified, with non-traditional players gaining share among SMEs and P2P users, forcing banks to respond with better UX and pricing models.

Wise positions on the mid-market FX rate with explicit fees; Payoneer lists card and cross-border fees on a public schedule; and Stripe provides standard processing prices plus Connect/Global Payouts for programmatic disbursements. Together, these approaches make costs easier to model and embed directly in software.

What Sets Due Apart: Multi-Currency, Stablecoins, and Low Fees

Due combines multi-currency accounts with a Stablecoin Payments API and local-rail payouts. The company’s pages state: borderless Global Accounts with virtual details (e.g., EUR IBAN, USD ACH/Fedwire, GBP account) to collect and hold balances; local and mobile-money transfers in 80+ countries; and SWIFT payouts to 150+ countries. For teams that prefer tokenised settlement, Due’s API supports USDC/EURC alongside fiat rails from the same integration.

On pricing, Due’s cross-border payments are around 0.2–0.3%, with all fees under 1% depending on flow and volume, positioning that contrasts with card-style pricing and some marketplace payout charges. (As always, exact fees depend on corridor and usage).