FSB publishes roadmap to enhance cross-border payments

October 13, 2020

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has published a roadmap to enhance cross-border payments, which will be delivered to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors at a October 14 meeting.

The news comes on the back of the FSB noting that the G20 has made enhancing cross-border payments a priority during the Saudi Arabian presidency.

The roadmap sets out to address key challenges often faced by cross-border payments and the frictions in existing processes that contribute to these challenges such as high costs, low speed, limited access and insufficient transparency that affect end-users and service providers.

The FSB roadmap is the result of a collaboration with the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and other relevant international organisations and standard-setting bodies.

The roadmap sets out actions and indicative timelines five focus areas. The first is to commit to a joint public and private sector vision to enhance cross-border payments. The second is to coordinate on regulatory, supervisory and oversight frameworks. The third is to improve existing payment infrastructures and arrangements to support the requirements of the cross-border payments market.

The fourth is to increase data quality and straight-through processing by enhancing data and market practices.

The fifth is to explore the potential role of new payment infrastructures and arrangements.

“This roadmap can make a real difference in addressing the existing challenges of cross-border payments, and change will be driven by collaboration and engagement between the public and private sectors,” said Alejandro Díaz de León, governor of the Bank of Mexico and co-chair of the FSB Cross-border Payments Coordination Group (CPC) that coordinated the development of the roadmap.

Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor of the Bank of England, chair of the CPMI and the other co-chair of the CPC, added, “The roadmap will transform cross-border payments to make them faster, cheaper, more transparent and inclusive. National authorities and international organisations are committed to delivering this roadmap to enhance cross-border payments.”