Moving on up: results of the 2024 cross-border payments monitoring survey
Highlights
- Advancements in payment system interoperability and extensions vary across different systems and regions. Operating hour results have largely remained consistent year on year, but interest in 24/7 operations is noticeably increasing. The Asia-Pacific region is at the forefront of implementing interlinking arrangements.
- The adoption of ISO 20022 messaging standards and application programming interfaces (APIs) is progressing well. Many payment systems are either already processing or planning to adopt ISO 20022 messages and are incorporating APIs for data exchange.
- Numerous jurisdictions are implementing or planning legal and regulatory reforms to enhance payment system access for non-bank payment service providers and to strengthen data privacy legislation. A significant number of these jurisdictions are adopting a risk-based approach to prevent financial crime and are introducing digital identifiers for individuals and businesses.
Introduction
Enhancing cross-border payments critically depends on improvements in domestic payment infrastructures and harmonised legal and regulatory frameworks. This is because the first and last miles of a cross-border payment typically rely on domestic payment rails. Therefore, modernising domestic payment infrastructure is crucial for improving interoperability with other payment systems and across jurisdictions. These improvements are often part of a broader payment system strategy or financial sector reform. Improving payment infrastructures and the broader payment ecosystem requires significant time and effort.
The Bank for International Settlements' Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), in cooperation with the Financial Stability Board (FSB), monitors progress on the G20 Roadmap priority themes for enhancing cross-border payments: (i) payment system interoperability and extension; (ii) data exchange and message standards; and (iii) legal, regulatory and supervisory frameworks. The first monitoring survey among central banks was conducted in 2023, with results published in June 2024 (here).
The CPMI and other international organisations are actively promoting the implementation of the guidance and recommendations that have emerged from the G20 cross-border payments programme over the past years. The second iteration of the CPMI-FSB monitoring survey in 2024 included questions about the status of and plans for implementing this work. This addition aimed at enhancing the data set while maintaining continuity in order to facilitate time series analysis where possible. This CPMI Brief presents the findings from the 2024 survey and compares them with the 2023 data. It is based on responses to the 2024 iteration from 68 central banks, 49 of which also participated in the 2023 survey.
