Globalization has transformed business world with the rising amount of businesses and individuals making use of overseas suppliers. This has led to an increase in international payments. The rise in international commerce, e-commerce , and the internationalization of production indicates that demand for cross-border payments will continue to expand rapidly. A Forrester study suggests that cross-border eCommerce will extend over at least 29 countries across Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East by the year 2022.

The process of sending money from one place to another, whether for relatives, friends or even to pay for services or goods costs more, takes longer difficult, inconvenient as well as less transparent than payments made in the domestic market. It could have to do with the complexity involved in international payments that pose more risks and regulations than domestic transactions.

To address these issues blockchain technology has been viewed as a one-stop solution that can improve the efficiency of cross-border transactions. A cross-border payment system that is based on blockchain platforms like Stellar will ensure that financial services are available to those who have limited or no banking services. These include interconnections with domestic payment systems, expansion of closed-loop systems that are proprietary to boundaries, and peer-to-peer payments systems that are based on blockchain.

What are the problems facing traditional cross-border payment system?

The term “cross-border payment” refers to the process that see the money transferred from one nation and then to a different country. The traditional cross-border transaction consists of several entities such as banks or financial institutions, scheme providers, or even individuals who want to transfer funds across different territories.

Once the payment is initiated then the money is processed and transferred through fragmented financial institutions. Every time, the funds custody shifts and the institution charges fees of the range of a certain percentage. This results in increasing costs for the person who is sending. The total charges are calculated based on the amount of the transfer and the country of destination. The whole process isn’t all that expensive, but it is also lengthy. Because the sender and the receiver don’t share a single ledger, the transaction has to be handled by a variety of intermediaries. The need for cross-border payments is essential when purchasing goods and services from one country to the next. However, they are not practical due to the following reasons:

• The processing of international payments through banks is complex and complex.
• Unpredictable currency exchange rates.
• The risk of robbery, hacking or theft.

1. Older operational systems

Banks often face the problem of the messaging infrastructure when it comes to cross-border transactions. Most cross-border transactions are made using the SWIFT the MT103 messaging format. It is a reliable format, but can’t carry a lot of information over an arbitrary limit. If you require more information, it’s processed via email. The manual process and non-automated messages for both parties to the exchange makes this method unproductive.

2. Paying for payments is slow

Because of a lengthy and complex process crossing borders can cease at any time. This can lead to delays and a negative client experiences for the two parties. The reason for this delay could be the inadequacy of details about the payment process or the necessity to conduct sanction checks or AML checks, as well as fraud. Due to the absence of digitization in the data sharing process, transactions must go through several sophisticated communication channels.

For instance the transfer of funds between banks internationally is the most common method of making international payments. Many of the major banks have a small amount of currency. If a sender from the US would like for a transfer of funds in UK. UK however the banking institutions don’t hold sufficient reserves of currency. In such a case they must rely on their foreign bank partners for the execution of the transactions. Because the smaller banks don’t have foreign currency, they choose to use large banks to handle the cross-border transactions for them. This is only a situation, however there are many intermediaries involved in these procedures, which can cause delays in transactions.

The majority of B2B international payments are processed by banks. The transaction needs to pass through intermediary institutions, such as banks, central banks overseas banks, and the central bank. Each has an accounting system that is independent. Thus, bank records require clearing and reconciliation with other counterparties at the same time. This is a slow process and results in a longer time processing the transactions.

3. Privacy laws

A majority of banks must adhere to the regulations regarding privacy of personal data. The regulations define which customer’s data is required to be shared across various areas for processing transactions. The distinction, sorting and arranging of this data can take a long time. In certain countries, banks are not able to provide information on clients to various departments. This regulation can be implemented with the help of a technological solution to simplify the whole procedure.

4. Insufficient Security, and Lack of Transparency

Regular cross-border payment uses centralized payment. Customers are required to communicate their accounts as well as other details with intermediaries. Based on these information intermediaries process remittances as well as withdrawals. This massive amount of customer information and details about transactions associated with intermediaries are an easy attack for hackers. When using a third-party to make transactions that cross borders the details of transactions are available across various platforms, foreign merchants and banks. This means that the data is more susceptible to being released in these modes. Participants with the transactions can’t monitor their payments, and as a result it becomes hard to estimate the amount of the final payment and the time of delivery date.

5. Expensive

The fees are accumulated from the bank of the sender to the international and national correspondent banks as well as foreign exchange exchanges at each stage during the process. The fee is typically as high as 3 percent for large-volume trans-border transactions. However, it could increase to 10% if the volume and value of payments aren’t high enough. It is also unclear when banks are required to charge fees to recipients.

For instance credit cards are the most the most popular choice for customers who want to make cross-border transactions. All they have to do is input their card information and then wait for the authentication. It’s a simple process but there’s more happening in the background. Cross-border transactions require more effort from the credit card companies and banks to convert the two currencies. This additional work is a cause for cost of the transaction which is passed along in the process of making payments.

Read More: https://www.leewayhertz.com/cross-border-payments-on-stellar/