The payments industry is evolving at pace, led by the rapid growth of cross-border money flows. The report brings together Citi’s latest thinking on cross-border payments and the evolution of the payments landscape.

It shares insights from a Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) survey of about 100 financial institutions worldwide including banks, FinTechs and insurance companies. The report also draws on expert insights from Citi’s Future of Finance team, external experts, and our industry leading TTS franchise. The TTS business is part of Citi’s Services organization which moves nearly US$5 trillion for clients each day. Citi Services serves some 19,000 clients and does business in 180 different markets.

Key takeaways from the report include:

• Banks need to focus on providing alternative payment methods with nearly two-thirds of survey respondents seeing a demand from clients.

• According to the Citi TTS survey, bank management thinks delivering always-on operations (24×7) is the leading priority for banks over the next 5 years to address the pain-points of cross-border payments.

• 38% of FinTechs expect to gain 5 to 10% in market share in cross-border payments in the next two to five years.

• With ISO 20022, reduce fragmented standards for cross-border payments are expected, providing rich and structured data with each transaction, enabling enhanced analytics which in theory should benefit all market participants.

The report also checks in on the latest progress in the G20 roadmap – a collective effort to make cross-border payments cheaper, faster, and more accessible.