Rafael Linde, International Development director and Overall Relationship Management of Cecabank, ponders in Cinco Días on the challenges and priorities in the evolution of the cross-border payments, in a context of exponential growth of the volume of operations.
According to data from the Bank of England, it is expected that these payments reach the 250 trillion dollars in 2027, which means an increase of 100 trillions in barely a decade. This overall flow of capital is maintained in a complex platforms infrastructure, clearing houses and correspondent banks, whose efficiency and security are key for the international trade.
Linde emphasises that, although the G20 has set ambitious objectives to improve the speed, transparency and cost of the cross-border payments, none of they reached is had to date, according to the follow-up made by the Financial Stability Board (FSB). In particular, the objective of that 75% of payments are paid into less than a time contrasts with the current reality, where only between 1% and 30% fulfill that term. Before this situation, poses the need of reconsidering some aims, especially those ones related to the speed, prioritising the security as a basic.
The acceleration of the payments involves significant risks, as the fraud and the money laundering, whose management already supposes an annual multi-million investment. If the transactions were settled in seconds, the margin to apply controls of fulfillment would be reduced, which you would be able to compromise the entirety of the system. In addition, the operations 24/7 that they require the instantaneous payments poses technical and financial challenges for the companies, from the constant accounting until the management of the liquidity and the risk of exchange rate.
Linde warns also on the risk of concentration of the market at the hands of major companies with skills to assume these costs, which you would be able to affect to the responsibility and contradict the objective of reducing costs of the payments. Following on from this, proposes a deeper reflection on the economic model of the payment services, questioning the perception of gratuitousness that have many users and defending that they are the suppliers who define its trade policies.
Finally, underlines that the improvement of the user's experience owes guide efforts of the industry, avoiding standardised solutions for realities various. The emergency for speeding up the payments should not be equal in all the geographies, especially when in areas as a SEPA are already processed in minutes. In an overall demanding environment and of limited resources, Linde concludes that the sustainability, the security and the confidence must be the pillars on those which the future of the cross-border payments is built.
