Speaking to TechCentral in an interview on Wednesday, Emanuela Saccarola , head of global cross-border payments at Citibank, said countries such as India and Brazil, which have successfully made their domestic payments fast and seamless through modernised infrastructure, continue to struggle to achieve similar levels of proficiency in the cross-border space. This is because their regulatory environments are not as enabling as they could be.
"There are a lot of people who like to think of cross-border payments as one monolithic thing, but the reality is that it is a combination of multiple corridors made up of approximately 200 markets around the world and 20 000 combinations of cross-border payments," said Saccarola.
"Ideally, when you look at cross-border payments, you should be able to say there are two seamless domestic payment infrastructures with a seamless foreign exchange service in between. Where we achieve that is where the ecosystems in the two domestic countries are seamless and operate with modernised infrastructure and probably very light regulation."