Still short of the 2027 targets
How far are cross-border payments from the goals governments set for them? In 2021 the G20 endorsed targets drawn up by the Financial Stability Board, most of them due by the end of 2027. The FSB’s progress report of October 2025 judged it “unlikely” that satisfactory global improvement would arrive on that timetable, because its indicators had improved only slightly at the global level since they were first calculated in 2023. Costs have barely moved.
| Measure | Target for end-2027 | Reading in March 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Average cost of a retail payment | No more than 1% | 1.6% (business to business) to 2.6% (person to person) |
| Retail corridors costing more than 3% | None | 18.3% |
| Retail payments credited within an hour | 75% | 35.4% of services |
| Wholesale payments credited within an hour | 75% | 54.6% |
The FSB counts payments of $100,000 or more as wholesale and anything smaller, other than remittances, as retail. Its retail speed figure counts payment services offered by providers, not individual transfers. Money sent home by migrants has a separate goal, covered under remittance.
Why the chain is long
A 2018 report by the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, the global standard setter for payment systems, describes what sits in the way. Such payments typically involve the national payment systems of at least two jurisdictions, different currencies and a foreign exchange trade. Most providers, it found, relied on correspondent banks to settle the money and to make the conversion.
Speed is measured along that chain. The FSB takes its wholesale figures from SWIFT, the bank messaging network, and says the slowest step has traditionally been the last one, when the receiving bank credits its customer.
The exchange rate is most of the bill
Fees are the smaller part. The FSB’s figures for 2025 put the foreign exchange cost at 87.1% of the average cost of a business payment, 1.4 points of 1.6%, and at 55.2% for payments between people.
The sender’s receipt can still understate the total. The FSB’s survey of payment providers found receiver-side fees averaging 0.1% to 1.3% of the amount sent, heaviest on small payments, with a further 0.7% to 1.1% when the receiving side converts the currency. Those charges can be deducted from the money that arrives, through the FX spread as well as a fee.
What a foreign card costs a merchant
Payment provider Stripe’s US pricing, read on November 12, 2026, shows the surcharge in plain numbers. A domestic card costs 2.9% plus 30 cents, an international card adds 1.5%, and a currency conversion adds another 1%.
On a $100 sale the merchant pays $3.20 for a local card and $5.70 for a foreign one that needs converting. The same page prices stablecoin payments at 1.5% of the dollar amount, or $1.50.
Where stablecoins fit
Large sums in stablecoins already cross borders. BIS Working Paper 1265, published May 8, 2025, tracked bitcoin, ether, USDT and USDC between 184 countries and found flows peaking at around $2.6 trillion in 2021, with stablecoins close to half. Stablecoin flows showed stronger links to the cost of traditional remittances, and capital flow controls appeared largely ineffective at curbing crypto flows of any kind.
Unless the recipient spends the coins as they are, they still have to become local money, so an off-ramp fee and exchange rate take the place of the bank’s.
Compare the amount the recipient will actually receive, whichever route you use.