Cross-Border Digital Trade & Payments

For MSMEs in emerging markets, cross-border payments remain slow, opaque, and expensive. While domestic instant payment networks have flourished, international B2B transactions are bottlenecked by 1970s correspondent banking rails. Chief among these inefficiencies is the traditional pre-funding model, which traps precious SME liquidity in static Nostro/Vostro clearing cycles for three to five days instead of fueling inventory or working capital.
Despite the G20 target of achieving sub-3% transaction costs and sub-one-hour settlement times, EMDE corridors face a structural "Global South premium." Opaque mid-route fee deductions and forced FX conversions through USD/EUR pivot currencies mean SMEs consistently receive less than invoiced. Furthermore, successful domestic networks like India’s UPI or Brazil’s Pix remain isolated "digital islands," lacking the scalable interlinking frameworks required for seamless cross-border SME trade.
This roundtable brings together central bankers, financial infrastructure builders, and developmental institutions to address these friction points, explore alternative liquidity models, and build transparent, real-time cross-border corridors.
Some of the discussion points include:
1. Dismantling Pre-funding: What alternative liquidity and settlement models (e.g., bilateral netting, digital assets, central bank bridges) can replace legacy Nostro/Vostro structures to free up SME working capital?
2. Interlinking Fast Payments: What technical and regulatory standards are required to link regional fast-payment systems (e.g., UPI, Pix, ASEAN QR) across cross-border EMDE corridors?
3. Bypassing the "Global South Premium": How can we eliminate opaque mid-route routing and pivot-currency fees to hit G20 cost and speed targets for underserved SME corridors?