Key Points from the Fintech Gathering: Collaborations focused on Banking and International Payments
Last week, the North American cross-border payments industry gathered in Las Vegas for Fintech Meetup, an event that facilitates tens of thousands of 1:1 meetings. One of the highlighted panels was 'Breaking Borders: How Top Banks are Winning Customers with Cross-Border Payment Innovation and Partnerships'.
The discussion was deemed insightful, with panelists including Mary Ellen Brown, MD & Head of GTB Business Transformation at TD Securities, Emanuela Saccarola, MD, Head of Cross Border Payments at Citi, and Kumar Narayan, Executive Director, Global Head of US Dollar Clearing at J.P. Morgan.
As the global size of the B2B cross-border payments market reached $31.6tn in 2024 and is forecasted to reach $50tn by 2032, it is clear that this sector is ripe for innovation. Banks are aware of the need to step up their response to competition from non-bank players, and partnerships are increasingly seen as an appealing option.
Strategies for finding partners for cross-border payment initiatives in the fintech industry involve identifying complementary capabilities and aligning on technological, regulatory, and market needs. Key strategies drawn from recent fintech partnerships include:
1. Targeting established fintechs or financial infrastructure providers with complementary technology, such as the partnership between OpenPayd and Ripple, which leverages Ripple’s blockchain and digital asset infrastructure combined with OpenPayd’s real-time payment rails and multi-currency accounts. 2. Focusing on partners with strong regional presence or licenses, as demonstrated by Whalet's partnership with TerraPay, which benefits from TerraPay’s global payout network and compliance licenses in Singapore, the U.S., and Hong Kong. 3. Seeking partnerships that embed key financial services such as FX management and treasury functions, like the collaboration between Okoora and DashDevs, which delivers an embedded FX infrastructure for fintech platforms. 4. Collaborating with established remittance and transfer providers for regional corridor expansion, as Almond FinTech did with Singapore-based Ample Transfers to optimize treasury and settlement operations on the Singapore–Indonesia corridor. 5. Leveraging API-driven integration, as many partnerships emphasize the use of APIs to integrate services like payment processing, currency conversion, and compliance checks into a single platform. 6. Aligning on regulatory compliance and risk management, as choosing partners with strong compliance frameworks and regional licenses ensures seamless operations across jurisdictions and builds trust with enterprise clients.
Consumer money transfers have served as a blueprint for innovation on the B2B side, but some corporate clients prefer to slow down transactions for security reasons. Nevertheless, there is a greater need for liquidity solutions in the B2B cross-border payments market.
The panel highlighted the opportunities presented by partnerships in cross-border payments, with non-bank players rapidly innovating in this sector. However, not all would-be partners in the B2B cross-border payments market pass required due diligence. The event concluded with a consensus that collaboration between banks and fintechs can be complementary, enabling them to reach new markets and increase their levels of service.
In the context of the discussed strategies for finding partners in the fintech industry, Mary Ellen Brown, Emanuela Saccarola, and Kumar Narayan might explore partnerships that leverage complementary technologies in business (such as the collaboration between OpenPayd and Ripple). As the B2B cross-border payments market continues to grow towards $50tn by 2032, technology will play a crucial role in developing innovation and staying competitive, not just among banks, but also technology-driven non-bank players.
