The greatest obstacle to faster cross-border payments is no longer moving money. It is delivering the same certainty, visibility and immediacy that consumers and businesses already assume when payments stay within national borders.
That expectation is reshaping how companies think about global payments. What began as a push for faster settlement has broadened into a demand for continuous availability, end-to-end transparency and payment experiences that resemble domestic, real-time transactions, even when funds cross multiple jurisdictions.
AJ McCray, managing director and head of Global Payments Product at Bank of America, said the forces behind that demand extend well beyond advances in payment technology.
“There are really three things that are driving this need,” McCray told PYMNTS. “You’ve got consumer expectations, new business models and more sophisticated corporate treasurers.”
As consumers become accustomed to instant domestic payments, they bring the same expectations when transactions move across borders. At the same time, digital business models are generating payment flows that did not exist at scale only a few years ago.
New Payment Models Demand New Infrastructure
Many of the fastest-growing cross-border payment flows involve relatively modest transaction values sent to individuals or small businesses rather than traditional corporate counterparties.
McCray pointed to remittances, marketplace payouts, gig economy compensation and eCommerce payments as examples where payment speed has become part of the customer experience rather than simply a back-office function.
“Most of those payments are relatively low value … and those payments are going to people or very small businesses,” he noted.
Technology firms, financial institutions and payment providers have emerged as early adopters because many already operate internationally while serving customers who expect immediate confirmation that money has arrived.
That expectation also alters competitive dynamics. Companies are judged on how confidently recipients know the payment has succeeded.
For McCray, the objective is straightforward.
“The goal is to make the cross-border experience feel like the local experience,” he said.
Achieving that remains difficult because international payments encounter obstacles that domestic transfers generally avoid.
Cross-border transactions often lose value through intermediary deductions, pass through multiple institutions that complicate payment tracking and remain constrained by differing business hours across regions.
Those issues combine to produce uncertainty precisely where businesses increasingly expect certainty.
“The full value of the payment gets there, you get immediate notification of that payment, and it is time-zone neutral or time-zone independent,” McCray said, describing what customers ultimately want from international payment services.
McCray cited the example of a technology company paying freelance developers through its online platform. If a payment succeeds, immediate confirmation reassures the recipient that funds are available. If the payment fails because of an incorrect account number, immediate notification allows both parties to correct the information and resend the payment without lengthy delays.
“Tracking is critical,” he said.
The benefit extends beyond operational efficiency. For digital platforms competing to attract workers, sellers or service providers, reducing payment uncertainty can strengthen the overall customer experience.
Corporate treasury departments are also approaching cross-border payments differently than they did only a few years ago.
“It is one thing to have a 24/7 solution and a real-time solution. It’s another to be able to use it,” McCray said. “Corporate treasuries over the past few years have really been investing in their technology and in their processes.”
Those investments are allowing treasury organizations to adopt payment capabilities that previously exceeded their operational readiness.
At the same time, the migration toward ISO 20022 messaging promises benefits that extend beyond technical modernization.
McCray said standardized data formats reduce operational friction because banks no longer need to interpret multiple national payment formats while conducting compliance and control reviews. More structured payment information also improves straight-through processing, helping payments avoid delays that undermine real-time experiences.
Longer term, he expects richer payment data to reshape business-to-business transactions by allowing invoice and remittance information to travel with supplier payments, making reconciliation substantially easier for finance and accounting teams.
Against that backdrop, Bank of America recently introduced a cross-border payments capability intended to deliver full-value payments, continuous processing and end-to-end payment visibility. McCray said the broader market continues to produce promising pilots and initiatives, although he said the industry has yet to establish a single approach that combines simplicity, scalability and broad adoption.
He does not expect the transition to happen overnight.
“This is going to take time,” McCray said. Adoption will vary across countries as domestic real-time payment systems mature, while early momentum is likely to come from organizations that view payment quality as part of the value they deliver to customers rather than simply a back-office function.
Watch the full interview with AJ McCray to learn more about:
- Which markets are setting the pace for making cross-border payments feel like local ones
- Why treasury modernization may determine who can actually deliver a local-like payment experience, not just offer 24/7 payments.
- What still stands between today’s pilots and cross-border payments that match the speed, certainty and visibility of domestic transactions.