The Financial Stability Board’s own 2025 progress report is candid about the gap between targets and outcomes. The question is what fills that gap instead.
In 2021, the G20 endorsed a set of quantitative targets for improving cross-border payments by 2027. The targets were specific: the average global cost of cross-border payments should fall to 1% or below. No payment corridor should cost more than 3%. At least 75% of cross-border payments should arrive within one hour of initiation.
The Financial Stability Board’s 2025 consolidated progress report is unusually candid about what the data shows. Its conclusion: it is unlikely that satisfactory improvements at the global level will be achieved in line with the 2027 Roadmap timetable.
The 2025 key performance indicators provide a specific picture of the gap. Only 35.4% of global cross-border retail payments are credited within one hour of initiation, which is 39.6 percentage points below the 75% target. The average global cost of person-to-person cross-border payments sits at approximately 2.6%, unchanged from 2023. Sub-Saharan Africa averages above 4% for person-to-person payment costs, higher than any other region tracked, and moving upward.
The FSB’s report is explicit about the structural reasons for the gap. The international policy work has largely been completed. The failure is in implementation. Fragmented regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions, inconsistent interpretation of AML and compliance requirements, legacy infrastructure at incumbent institutions, and continued dependence on correspondent banking networks that introduce multiple intermediaries and processing delays at every step.
While the multilateral roadmap falls short, private capital is reaching the same conclusion through a different mechanism. Global Payments acquired Worldpay for $24.25 billion. Mastercard acquired BVNK, adding stablecoin rails that settle in minutes without correspondent intermediaries. Ripple’s Hidden Road acquisition created an institutional prime brokerage infrastructure with $3 trillion in annual clearing.
The G20’s 2027 targets for cross-border payment costs, speed, and access will not be met. The policy architecture has been built. The implementation has not followed at the speed or consistency required. What will happen instead is a bifurcation. The corridors where private capital has deployed better infrastructure will see improvement that tracks or exceeds the targets. The corridors where correspondent banking remains the only available rail will improve slowly if at all.
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
1. FSB: G20 Roadmap Consolidated Progress Report 2025
2. FSB: Cross-Border Payments hub page
3. World Bank: Remittance Prices Worldwide database
4. BIS Bulletin No. 119: Cross-Border Payment Technologies
5. BIS: Next-Generation Monetary and Financial System
6. The Paypers: Understanding the G20 Cross-Border Payments Targets
7. Payment Expert: Global Payments completes Worldpay deal
8. Mastercard: Acquisition of BVNK
