Domestic payments in the US, Europe, and India can clear in seconds, thanks to high-speed payments infrastructure. But when money crosses a border, the traditional means, an international wire transfer, typically takes three to five days to clear.

There’s increasing demand for instant money movement worldwide: real-time payment (RTP) systems processed just over 266 billion transactions globally in 2023. Many countries have RTP systems, and some of them are linking together to enable faster cross-border payments. For example, Singapore and Thailand already support instant transfers with nothing more than a phone number.

Below, we’ll break down how immediate cross-border payments work, what’s making them viable now, and how businesses can start using them.

What’s in this article?

• What are immediate cross-border payments?
  
• How do instant cross-border settlement flows work?
  
• What technologies power immediate payments?
  
• What barriers hinder the adoption of instant payments?
  
• How can businesses start offering immediate cross-border payments?
  
• How Stripe Payments can help
  

What are immediate cross-border payments?

Immediate cross-border payments are international transfers that settle in seconds or minutes, rather than days. In the traditional model, multiple banks in a chain would pass the payment along. Each bank would have to process it according to its own time zone, business hours, and compliance checks. This was further complicated by each country having its own payments infrastructure, rules, message formats, and clearing windows. A basic transfer could take several days, because the systems involved weren’t designed to talk to each other in real time.

But immediate cross-border payments enable banks in different countries to exchange value directly and instantly. Instead of sending a message via a multiday relay, the payer’s bank and the receiver’s bank settle almost instantly, with the payment confirmed on both sides.

How do instant cross-border settlement flows work?

Instant cross-border payments work by connecting the sender’s and receiver’s banks to settle with each other in real time, but this can happen in a few different ways. Here’s how some common cross-border payment systems work.

Linked RTP systems

This approach links domestic RTP systems so a payment from one country’s real-time network can settle in another’s. This minimizes reliance on correspondent banking. For example, PayNow (Singapore) and PromptPay (Thailand) already support nearly instant cross-border transfers using only a phone number. Meanwhile, multilateral initiatives, such as Project Nexus, are working to build a global hub that connects multiple RTP networks, making real-time cross-border payments possible across participating countries.

Prefunded currency corridors

With this model, liquidity providers hold funds in destination countries so payments can be delivered the moment they’re triggered, with the underlying balances settled later. This setup gives the recipient immediate access to money while the provider reconciles positions in the background. For example, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) uses this model to power fast settlement across many African markets.

Card network push payments

Card networks let businesses push funds directly to eligible debit cards through existing global card infrastructure, often within minutes. This method is especially common in use cases where marketplace sellers or gig workers want quick access to their earnings and already rely on debit cards as their primary financial tool.

Blockchain-based settlement

A newer tactic uses digital assets to move value across borders. Stablecoins and various central bank digital currency pilots have shown that blockchains can settle transactions almost instantly between jurisdictions. While the technology proves the speed is possible, changing regulations and compliance requirements add another layer of complexity.

What technologies power immediate payments?

Immediate payments depend on a stack of technologies that can validate, clear, and settle 24/7. Most of the needed pieces already exist; the challenge is integrating them.

These are the technologies that power instant payments.

Modern data standards

These payments rely on clean, structured payment data. The shift to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 20022 enables richer information to travel with each transaction, which minimizes errors, supports automated compliance checks, and prevents delays due to addresses or names in unstructured formats. It also makes end-to-end tracking easier.

Application programming interfaces (APIs) and cloud-based cores

Traditional banking systems weren’t built for instant payments, which can make RTPs difficult to support. Modern platforms powered by APIs solve this by allowing payments to be initiated, verified, and confirmed almost instantly through software. This is where global payment providers come in. With a single integration, businesses can reach customers worldwide, handle payouts, and stay compliant without managing multiple bank relationships.

Real-time compliance and security

Banks and payment providers are deploying real-time sanctions screening, machine learning fraud models, and shared data services that validate transactions before the money moves. Authentication tools such as two-factor authentication (2FA) and biometrics help ensure instant payments aren’t misused for fraud.

What barriers hinder the adoption of instant payments?

Instant cross-border settlement is advancing quickly, but several structural limits remain. These are the primary challenges.

Patchy network coverage

RTP systems still usually operate only domestically. If either bank in a transaction isn’t connected to an instant network, the payment will default to slower methods. Broad global coverage depends on more institutions joining and staying online 24/7.

Legacy infrastructure

Many banks still run on systems designed around daily clearing cycles. These cores aren’t fine-tuned for continuous settlement, live liquidity management, or high-volume API traffic. Modernizing them can be expensive and slow, and global performance is limited by whichever part of the system can’t operate in real time.

Interoperability gaps

Many countries have different data formats, message rules, and identity requirements. Even basic elements (e.g., character sets, address structures, and error codes) vary in ways that can block a real-time transfer. ISO 20022 helps reduce this friction, but full adaptation across markets takes time. Currency exchange adds its own complications: the conversion has to be priced, executed, and confirmed in the same instant as the payment.

Compliance pressure

Cross-border transactions involve Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and sanctions checks across multiple jurisdictions. Compliance teams have hours or days to review alerts when they work in batch payment systems. Real-time flows compress that window to seconds. Many institutions still rely on tools or workflows that can’t keep pace. And because RTPs settle quickly, there’s little room to recover funds if a fraudulent or misdirected payment goes through.

Coordination and governance

Instant cross-border payment schemes require agreement on standards, operating rules, and settlement models across banks, regulators, and central banks. The pace of coordination varies by region, which shapes how quickly new corridors come online.

How can businesses start offering immediate cross-border payments?

Introducing immediate cross-border payments starts with understanding where faster settlement meaningfully improves your financial operations. From there, choose the right partners, integrate cleanly, and roll your corridor out in a manageable way.

Here are the steps.

Identify the flows in which speed matters

First, pinpoint the specific payment routes that suffer from slow settlement: any part where delayed cash availability creates workflow bottlenecks or customer dissatisfaction. Think about which suppliers, partners, or revenue streams experience delays consistently, and focus on the flows where faster movement of funds would noticeably improve operations. These are the places where real-time settlement can have a visible impact.

Work with connected providers

Businesses typically access instant cross-border payouts through partners. Once you know where speed matters, look for partners that already have the systems to move money quickly across borders, including ties to local RTP networks, prepositioned liquidity in primary currencies, and built-in capabilities for compliance, foreign exchange, and push payments. The goal is to plug into infrastructure that’s already set up for immediacy so you don’t have to build those features yourself.

Integrate cleanly and validate up front

Real-time settlement works only when all the underlying data and triggers are solid, so you need to ensure your systems can send complete beneficiary details, trigger payments directly from your own stack, and automate routing, foreign exchange, and status updates. Because funds move instantly, you’ll also want sanctions and fraud checks running before a payment leaves your environment.

Start with a small rollout

Begin with a narrow test (i.e., one corridor and one use case) so you can watch how real-time behavior affects your reconciliation, customer experience, and support patterns. A small launch gives you enough feedback to adjust workflows and guardrails before you scale into additional markets or higher-volume flows.

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