Kanishka NaikThe Financial Stability Board identifies four persistent challenges in cross-border payments: high costs, low speed, limited access, and insufficient transparency. The G20 has made addressing these a priority.
Under the correspondent banking model, a single payment may pass through multiple intermediary banks, each applying its own fees. Traditional cross-border wire costs can total $25–35 per transaction, excluding foreign exchange, according to industry analysis by Thunes.
SWIFT GPI adds a tracking layer to correspondent bank chains, giving each payment a unique identifier and enabling senders to monitor its path. Recent SWIFT data indicates 90% of cross-border payments on its network now reach the destination bank within one hour.