Cross-border payments and remittances in 2026: the rails, what they cost and where AI sits

How does a cross-border payment move in 2026?

Most cross-border value still moves the way it has for decades: through correspondent banking. A bank with no account in the destination currency pays through a correspondent that has one, sometimes via a second correspondent; each holds the next one's money in a nostro or vostro account, screens the payment and may deduct a fee. The instructions travel as Swift messages. Swift's platform connects more than 11,500 banking and securities organisations, market infrastructures and corporates in more than 200 countries and territories (Swift, November 2025), and Swift does not hold funds: it carries the messages, while settlement happens across the banks' books.

The message format changed in 2025. Swift began a coexistence period between its legacy MT messages and ISO 20022 for cross-border payments and reporting (CBPR+) in March 2023; it ended on 22 November 2025, since when ISO 20022 is required for all payment instructions. Swift said 97% of payment instructions were sent in ISO 20022 on the first business day after the switch, with a conversion service turning the remaining MT instructions into ISO 20022 for a period (Swift, 25 November 2025). The point is structured data: names, addresses and purpose codes in defined fields rather than free text, which is what sanctions screening, fraud models and straight-through processing need.

Speed on the Swift leg is no longer the bottleneck. Swift says 75% of payments reach beneficiary banks within 10 minutes and its leg is only 20% of the total time of an average transaction; 80% is the domestic last mile (Swift, 25 September 2025).

The alternative is a network that holds money at both ends. Wise, Remitly, Xoom, Visa Direct and Mastercard Move pay out of liquidity they already hold in the receiving country, usually over the local instant rail, then rebalance in bulk. Wise routed over half of its fiscal 2026 transactions through domestic payment-system connections instead of correspondent chains (Wise Form 20-F, June 2026). Linked instant-payment systems do the same between two public rails; stablecoins and tokenised deposits replace the correspondent account with a token that settles 24/7.

Which rails carry cross-border payments and remittances, and how do they compare?

The table uses each operator's own dated figures. Reach is measured differently by each operator, so compare within a row. “Settlement asset” is what actually changes hands between institutions: commercial bank money in correspondent accounts, a network's settlement balances, a prefunded local balance, a stablecoin or a tokenised deposit.

First, the card networks have become account-to-account networks: Visa Direct reaches about 12 billion endpoints through roughly 4 billion each of cards, bank accounts and digital wallets, using more than 90 domestic payment schemes and more than 60 card and wallet networks, and processed more than 12.5 billion transactions for more than 650 partners in fiscal 2025 (Visa Form 10-K, November 2025). Mastercard Move describes nearly 17 billion endpoints in more than 200 countries and territories (Mastercard, 29 June 2026). Second, the fintechs price below banks: Wise's average cross-border take rate fell to 0.52% in fiscal 2026 from 0.58%, while Payoneer's revenue as a share of its volume was 120 basis points in 2025. Third, the stablecoin and tokenised-deposit rails are live but mostly institutional, not retail remittance products.

Not on the record: the per-transfer price a sending bank pays Visa or Mastercard, cross-border counts for Visa Direct or Mastercard Move separately from domestic ones, and Remitly or Payoneer speed figures for 2025 or 2026 (Remitly's last: over 92% disbursed in under an hour in 2024).

What do cross-border payments and remittances cost, and how fast are they?

The World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide (RPW) is the reference for cost. Its Issue 54, covering the third quarter of 2025, puts the global average cost of sending $200 at 6.36%, down from 6.49% in the first quarter of 2025. Banks are the most expensive providers at 14.99%, international money transfer operators average 5.52% and digital-only operators 3.54%. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most expensive region to send to at 8.46%, and 83% of corridors average less than 5%, up from 17% in 2009 (World Bank RPW, September 2025).

The G20 set targets for cost, speed, access and transparency in 2021, most due by end-2027 and remittance cost by 2030. The FSB tracks them with key performance indicators; its October 2025 report (the latest public one on 16 October 2026) concluded that “it is unlikely that satisfactory improvements at the global level will be achieved in line with the 2027 Roadmap timetable” and that the 2025 KPIs show only a slight improvement since they were first calculated in 2023.

The KPIs use Swift data (wholesale), FXC Intelligence (retail, March 2025) and the World Bank's RPW (remittances, Q1 2025). Two readings matter for anyone building a product. Retail speed is moving the wrong way: the share of retail services crediting within one business day fell from 74% in 2023 to 67.3% in 2025, with the largest falls in B2B and B2P payments, while P2P transfers credit within an hour in 46.4% of services. And the speed gap is at the edges: in flight, 88.5% of wholesale payments move within an hour, but only 61.7% clear the beneficiary leg that fast. Where a fast domestic rail sits at the end, the numbers change: the FSB reports that the PromptPay–PayNow link between Thailand and Singapore completes transfers within minutes and cut fees plus FX mark-up from an average 13% of transaction value to under 3%, with just over 870,000 transfers in 2024, up 16%.

Where do stablecoins and tokenised deposits fit after the GENIUS Act?

The GENIUS Act (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act) was signed on 18 July 2025 and created the first federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins. Per the White House: 100% reserves in liquid assets such as US dollars or short-term Treasuries, monthly reserve disclosure, holder priority in insolvency, Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions-compliance duties, and the ability to seize, freeze or burn tokens when legally required. The Act takes effect on 18 January 2027 or 120 days after the primary federal regulators issue final implementing rules, if earlier, as the FDIC's December 2025 proposed rule on bank subsidiaries issuing stablecoins restates (Federal Register, 19 December 2025).

For cross-border payments the stablecoin is a settlement asset, not a customer product: a sender still pays in local currency and the recipient still receives local currency, and the stablecoin replaces the correspondent account or the prefunded balance in between. The numbers on the record: USDC in circulation was $73.3 billion at 30 June 2026, up 19% year on year, and the Circle Payments Network (CPN) reached $14.7 billion in annualised volume with 175 financial institutions enrolled (Circle, 5 August 2026). Visa said its stablecoin settlement volume passed a $2.5 billion annualised run rate at 30 September 2025, across four stablecoins and four blockchains, and announced a pilot letting banks and remitters prefund Visa Direct with stablecoins (Visa Form 10-K, November 2025). Remitly told investors that “optimization in treasury operations aided by AI models and stablecoin” had driven continuous improvements to its FX cost (Remitly Q4 2025 call).

Banks answer with tokenised deposits, which stay a deposit claim on the bank. JPM Coin, which J.P. Morgan describes as regulated digital commercial bank money, was piloted in June 2025 and launched for institutional clients in November 2025 on public blockchain infrastructure (J.P. Morgan, 30 July 2026). Citi Token Services moves clients' funds across Citi's network around the clock on a private permissioned chain and on 28 September 2026 expanded to Japan (USD) and the UAE (USD and euro), making seven markets. At the wholesale level, the BIS and IIF's Project Agorá (seven central banks, more than 40 institutions) reported on 27 May 2026 that atomic cross-border settlement with tokenised reserves and tokenised deposits is achievable, and will move to real-value transactions. None of these removes sanctions screening.

How do linked instant-payment systems such as UPI–PayNow and Nexus work?

A linked instant-payment system connects two domestic fast-payment schemes so that a customer of a participating bank in one country can pay a customer in the other using a phone number or payment alias. There is no correspondent chain: each domestic scheme settles its own leg, and a participating bank or settlement agent converts the currency. The FSB's 2025 report lists the live links and plans. Singapore's PayNow and Thailand's PromptPay were linked in April 2021, with a daily limit of SGD 1,000 or THB 25,000. India's UPI and PayNow were linked in 2023. NPCI's UPI–PayNow FAQ sets a daily limit of SGD 1,000 or its rupee equivalent, says transfers run 24x7 and arrive in under 5 minutes, and lists the participants: DBS and Liquid Group in Singapore; State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Indian Bank and Indian Overseas Bank sending from India, and those plus Axis Bank and DBS Bank India receiving.

Bilateral links scale badly. Project Nexus, designed at the BIS Innovation Hub, replaces that with one hub that each domestic scheme connects to once. The central banks of India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand set up Nexus Global Payments in Singapore to run it, with the intention of taking it into production in 2027 (FSB, October 2025). On 9 February 2026 NGP appointed a PayNet–NETS joint venture as Nexus Technical Operator, working with AWS and Endava, with technical development starting in early 2026 and go-live targeted for 2027. The Eurosystem, a special observer in Nexus, is assessing whether TIPS could act as a hub for instant payments to and from the euro area, as well as a direct TIPS–UPI link and the EPC's One-Leg Out instant scheme (FSB, October 2025).

For a bank, a linked rail is the cheapest corridor it can own outright, where both schemes admit it and the limits suit the customer: SGD 1,000 a day serves family remittances, not supplier payments.

How do financial institutions partner with payment networks to offer branded remittance services?

A bank or credit union that wants to sell international transfers under its own name has five routes on the record, and large banks run several. The choice turns on who carries the payout network, who holds the licences and screens, what the money settles in, and how much margin the bank keeps.

Swift Go and the Swift retail scheme

The lowest-change route for a bank already on Swift: fees and FX shown upfront, a front end the sending bank customises, and more than 630 banks signed up. Swift's retail scheme (September 2025) adds rules on no hidden fees, full-value delivery and instant settlement where domestic rails allow. The bank keeps the brand, the customer and the FX margin; last-mile speed depends on the receiving bank.

Visa Direct and Mastercard Move

The card networks sell reach: one connection pushes funds to cards, accounts and wallets in 195-plus (Visa) or 200-plus (Mastercard) countries. Mashreq, a UAE bank, said on 29 June 2026 that Mastercard Move would extend its Quick Remit service to new corridors with local-currency payouts inside Mashreq's own digital channels. Visa's terms put compliance on the participant: Visa Direct clients “are solely responsible for their own compliance”, sanctions screening included.

Fintech white-label: Wise Platform

Wise Platform lets a bank embed Wise's transfers, FX and payout network in its own app. Wise names Itaú, Mandiri, Nubank and Monzo as users and says the services delivered through Wise Platform generate less than 10% of its transaction revenue and that some potential partner banks compete with it and may decline to partner (Wise Form 20-F, June 2026). The bank gets Wise's price and speed in exchange for sharing the margin and depending on Wise's licences and compliance record (see the Wise profile). Remitly, Payoneer and PayPal's Xoom sell directly to consumers and businesses; none of the three describes a bank white-label in the sources used here (see the Remitly profile).

Own corridor

A bank with presence at both ends can build the corridor itself: on a linked instant rail (DBS on UPI–PayNow), with tokenised deposits across its own branches (Citi, J.P. Morgan; institutional only), or in-house, as East West Bank did for US–Hong Kong transfers (see the computed table below). It keeps the full margin and carries all of the compliance.

• Map the corridors your customers actually use before choosing: a Mastercard Move or Visa Direct connection buys breadth; a linked rail or own corridor buys cost on one route.
• Decide who screens. In every model above the sending bank still owns its sanctions and AML obligations to its own regulator; a network or fintech partner adds its own screening, not a substitute.
• Compare against the RPW numbers your customers can see: banks averaged 14.99% on a $200 transfer in Q3 2025, digital-only operators 3.54%.

How do banks and fintechs use AI on cross-border payments?

AI on cross-border payments sits in four places: sanctions and AML screening, where most alerts are false positives; payment-data repair, where a malformed field stops straight-through processing; fraud detection on a payment that is often irrevocable once paid out; and FX and liquidity forecasting for providers that prefund accounts around the world. Figure 2 shows where each control sits, with a dated example.

Sanctions screening and false positives

Name matches on transliterated and common names produce most alerts; the disclosed answers are narrow models and agents that assemble context for a human decision. First National Bank of Omaha runs Nasdaq Verafin agents that pull transaction history and context for OFAC alerts, cutting investigators' time per case by 50% (American Banker, June 2026); Customers Bank piloted AI-powered KYC screening and OFAC false-positive clearing in the second quarter of 2026, and Dime Community Bank selected Quantifind for sanctions screening of payments in June 2025 without a go-live date (both in the computed table below, with sources). See AI for AML and AI in KYC for the wider record.

Fraud, data repair, FX and liquidity

Swift's AI anomaly detection is aimed at the small and medium-sized banks that use its Payment Controls Service; BNY's payment agent hands every corrected payment to a human reviewer. On the treasury side, Wise discloses AI/ML for currency-flow prediction and flags it as a model risk; Remitly credits AI models and stablecoins for FX-cost improvements. More on fraud models is on the AI fraud detection page.

Banks on the record (computed from the profiles)

Computed from this site's bank profiles: use cases mentioning cross-border payments, sanctions, Swift, the wire room or wire fraud, strongest status per bank, with each profile's source. Where a bank does not describe a system as AI, the row says so.

Fintechs on the record (computed from the profiles)

What is not on the record: no profiled bank has published a false-positive rate for its cross-border sanctions screening before and after AI, and none of the card networks has published AI results specific to Visa Direct or Mastercard Move. JPMorgan Chase and Citi disclose their token networks' volumes but not what AI runs on them. Swift has not published production results from the AI Payment Controls enhancement.

1. Global financial community completes switch to ISO 20022 — Swift, Nov 25, 2025 (swift.com)
2. Swift to set new rules for retail cross-border payments on its network — Swift, Sep 25, 2025 (swift.com)
3. Swift Go: simpler low-value international payments — Swift, Oct 16, 2026 (swift.com)
4. Swift Go participant banks — Swift, Oct 16, 2026 (swift.com)
5. Swift to launch AI-powered fraud defence to enhance cross-border payments — Swift, Oct 16, 2024 (swift.com)
6. G20 Targets for Enhancing Cross-border Payments — Financial Stability Board, Oct 13, 2021 (fsb.org)
7. G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-border Payments: Consolidated progress report for 2025 — Financial Stability Board, Oct 9, 2025 (fsb.org)
8. Remittance Prices Worldwide, Issue 54 (Q3 2025) — World Bank, Sep 30, 2025 (remittanceprices.worldbank.org)
9. Visa Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 — Visa Inc. via SEC EDGAR, Nov 6, 2025 (sec.gov)
10. Visa Direct: transform your global money movement — Visa, Oct 16, 2026 (visa.com)
11. Mashreq collaborates with Mastercard to expand Quick Remit cross-border payment corridors — Mastercard, Jun 29, 2026 (mastercard.com)
12. Mastercard transforms cross-border payments for banks with industry-first innovation — Mastercard, Oct 21, 2024 (mastercard.com)
13. Wise Group plc Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026 — Wise Group plc via SEC EDGAR, Jun 25, 2026 (sec.gov)
14. Remitly reports record second quarter results and raises full year 2026 outlook — Remitly via GlobeNewswire, Aug 5, 2026 (globenewswire.com)
15. Remitly (RELY) Q4 2025 earnings call transcript — The Motley Fool, Mar 13, 2026 (fool.com)
16. CEO Matt Oppenheimer's 2024 letter to shareholders — Remitly, Apr 25, 2025 (news.remitly.com)
17. How we replaced our legacy name matching algorithm with AI and boosted accuracy to over 99% — Payoneer Engineering, Sep 2, 2025 (engineering.payoneer.com)
18. Payoneer reports fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results — Payoneer, Feb 26, 2026 (payoneer.com)
19. Send money internationally — PayPal, Oct 16, 2026 (paypal.com)
20. Circle reports second quarter 2026 results — Circle, Aug 5, 2026 (circle.com)
21. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump signs GENIUS Act into law — The White House, Jul 18, 2025 (whitehouse.gov)
22. Approval requirements for issuance of payment stablecoins by subsidiaries of FDIC-supervised insured depository institutions (proposed rule) — FDIC via Federal Register, Dec 19, 2025 (federalregister.gov)
23. Kinexys earns Global Finance, Tearsheet and Fortune honors — J.P. Morgan, Jul 30, 2026 (jpmorgan.com)
24. Citi Token Services expands global footprint into Japan and UAE — Citigroup, Sep 28, 2026 (citigroup.com)
25. Project Agorá shows how tokenisation can improve wholesale cross-border payments — Bank for International Settlements, May 27, 2026 (bis.org)
26. Project Aurora — Bank for International Settlements, Jul 7, 2025 (bis.org)
27. UPI–PayNow Singapore (remittance): FAQs — NPCI International, Oct 16, 2026 (npci.org.in)
28. Nexus Global Payments appoints technical operator — Nexus Global Payments via Business Wire (Nasdaq), Feb 9, 2026 (nasdaq.com)
29. The making of a frontier firm: how AI is redesigning work at BNY — Microsoft WorkLab, May 12, 2026 (microsoft.com)
30. How FNBO uses agentic AI to investigate financial crime — American Banker, Jun 24, 2026 (americanbanker.com)