The Asia-Pacific region is approaching a milestone in cross-border payments: though fully achieving instant, efficient international money movement remains a goal.
Domestic payment systems have progressed with real-time rails, QR codes and digital wallets. However, cross-border transactions still face high costs, long settlement times, inconsistent experiences and increased fraud risks.
Amid sustained trade growth and digital economic expansion, establishing seamless cross-border payment infrastructure is now imperative. To address these challenges, LexisNexis Risk Solutions and the Singapore FinTech Association (SFA) published a white paper, The Journey Towards Frictionless Cross-Border Payments in APAC.
The report leverages industry insight to identify persistent barriers and define practical steps toward secure, affordable and interoperable payment flows across the region.
Progress and Challenges
The white paper sets a clear aspiration: cross-border payments should deliver the immediacy, transparency and low costs that users expect from domestic transfers. Achieving this vision means delivering real-time settlement, low fees, clear pricing and strong fraud protection.
Realising these objectives is complex due to the diversity within the Asia-Pacific region, which includes more than 50 countries, each with distinct regulations, data standards and payment systems. Compared with the European Union’s single directive for payments, the Asia-Pacific region faces significant regulatory fragmentation.
This divergence elevates compliance costs and complicates dispute resolution, slowing innovation. Advancing toward harmonised regulations and technical standards is essential for smoother operations and increased trust in cross-border payments.
The Role of Key Stakeholders
Banks offer essential compliance infrastructure, which maintains transaction reliability and security. Fintechs drive operational innovation, bridge service gaps and expand access. Governments provide regulatory clarity and support the move toward interoperability.
Adoption of standards such as ISO20022 is strengthening interoperability throughout the region; this messaging standard increases consistency across local markets. When full standardisation is not possible, payment service providers are using translation mechanisms to validate and convert payment instructions in real time.
Costs and Operational Realities
Recent roundtables identified several operational hurdles. Thirty-one percent of participants named adapting to changing regulations as the top obstacle. Other issues include fraud, transaction success rates, user experience and high costs, which 11% highlighted as a major barrier.
Consistent validation of payment instructions at entry improves data quality and prevents errors, with two-thirds of respondents agreeing this is paramount. There is also broad support for establishing shared data standards, which reduces payment failures, limits losses and strengthens the payments ecosystem.
User Priorities and Seamless Experiences
Customers across the region continue to prioritise speed, clear pricing and a seamless digital experience. Avoiding fraud is another central concern. Cumbersome interfaces and manual input often lead to errors and increased risk. To meet these expectations, digital-first processes, supported by APIs for early validation, help limit transaction failures and operational costs, while data standards and channel digitisation reduce friction across the process.
Ed Metzger, vice president, payments and platforms at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, noted that while industry focus and customer priorities do not always align, optimising the end-to-end customer journey and leveraging data and technology, often invisibly, are crucial for achieving compliance and efficiency.
Trends Defining the Future
Key developments are shaping the Asia-Pacific region’s cross-border payments outlook. Reducing remittance costs in line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, simplifying regulatory compliance, expanding real-time capabilities and integrating digital assets and embedded finance are high priorities.
The research highlights the growth of real-time B2B payments in ASEAN, government transfers using stablecoins and greater attention to pre-transaction sanctions and fraud checks.
Regional infrastructure initiatives, such as Project Nexus, developed by the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub, are enabling system interoperability.
By connecting domestic payment networks through a standardised access point, Nexus minimises integration barriers. The 2024 implementation blueprint, developed with several central banks, is a step forward for millions of users, supported by the establishment of Nexus Global Payments in Singapore.
Addressing Fraud and Risk
With broader adoption of real-time payments, the threat of fraud increases. The white paper evaluates the rise of Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, where users are deceived into sending funds to bad actors. It recommends implementing strong multi-factor authentication, advancing real-time monitoring, strengthening consumer education and sharing threat intelligence through close cooperation between banks, fintechs and regulators.
These efforts are foundational to building and maintaining trust as payment ecosystems evolve.
Path Forward: The Importance of Collaboration
Frictionless cross-border payments cannot be achieved in isolation. Progress depends on cross-sector technology adoption, continuous regulatory enhancements and operational cooperation. Stakeholders must harmonise compliance, participate in shared platforms and build trust to support emerging technologies, including central bank digital currencies.
The white paper concludes with clear strategic priorities: interoperability, robust security that does not compromise the user experience, harmonised regulations and wider access via digital wallets. Digital and mobile-first solutions will help include underserved populations that depend on remittances or lack access to traditional banking.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions remains committed to providing robust payment validation and fraud prevention technology for the industry. While the region has made major progress, further collaboration and alignment are required. As the region continues to lead in payments innovation, the focus must remain on reducing friction and managing risk through partnership.
Download The Journey Towards Frictionless Cross-Border Payments in APAC whitepaper here.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on images by suriyawutsuriya and lishchyshyn via Freepik.
