Steady as we go: results of the 2023 CPMI cross-border payments monitoring survey
Highlights
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Enhancing cross-border payments has been a G20 priority since 2020. This ambitious programme requires action by individual jurisdictions and payment systems. The CPMI survey results show determined progress: the vast majority of payment systems have or are in the process of implementing at least one action that the G20 considers to be relevant to enhance cross-border payments.
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Despite the promising number of initiatives planned to enhance cross-border payments, the survey results also highlight potential areas for further work. Projects to enhance cross-border payments cannot be seen in isolation and should complement domestic projects, given that the first and last miles of cross-border payments are typically processed in a domestic payment system.
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Central banks, in their roles as catalyst and operators, are key to bringing cross-border payments forward. International organisations and standard-setting bodies, such as the CPMI, the IMF and the World Bank, can support central banks in their ambitions.
Introduction
Enhancing cross-border payments can offer benefits to all, through lower costs, faster speed, greater transparency and improved access. In October 2020, the G20 leaders endorsed the roadmap for enhancing cross-border payments. Since then, the Bank for International Settlements' Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), in coordination with the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and other relevant international organisations and standard-setting bodies, has laid the foundation for further developments through stocktakes and analysis. In October 2021, the G20 endorsed a set of quantitative targets, with the goal to achieve most of them by end-2027. In 2023, the FSB published the prioritised roadmap to enhance cross-border payments and the progress report towards achieving the G20 targets based on key performance indicators. Key performance indicators are output measures; they provide information on speed, costs, transparency and access.
Progressing from payment system developments to improvements in the output measures, however, takes some time to materialise. Thus, to monitor progress on inputs, that is the implementation of measures of the prioritised roadmap, the CPMI launched in 2023 a monitoring survey among central banks on the updated roadmap's three priority themes: (i) payment system interoperability and extension; (ii) data exchange and message standards; and (iii) legal, regulatory and supervisory frameworks. This report presents the survey findings for each of the priority themes. Respondents provided information on operational or planned real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems, fast payment systems (FPS) and deferred net settlement (DNS) systems within their jurisdiction. These include payment systems owned and operated by the public sector as well as the major private systems.
