Reading List
Cross-Border Payments Reading List
Cross-border B2B payments are structurally expensive and operationally fragile — SWIFT correspondent chains, FX markups, and regulatory fragmentation add cost at every stage. This reading list traces the problems from first principles, maps the incumbent rail against emerging alternatives, and follows the real cost in stablecoin corridors that promise to replace it.
Who this is for
CFOs and treasury teams moving money across borders, payment operators expanding internationally, and fintech product teams building or evaluating cross-border payment infrastructure.
Reading order
The full reading list
-
Why Cross-Border B2B Payments Are Still Broken (And What's Actually Fixing Them)
The structural problems — SWIFT correspondent chains, nostro/vostro liquidity requirements, FX opacity, and multi-day settlement — that every alternative rail, stablecoin, and fintech corridor is trying to solve.
7 min read
-
SWIFT gpi vs Local Rail Interconnects: The Right Cross-Border Stack
SWIFT gpi improved tracking and speed but did not eliminate correspondent bank cost. Local rail interconnects offer different economics for specific corridors. The framework for choosing between them.
6 min read
-
FX Markup Economics: How Cross-Currency Acceptance Quietly Eats Margin
The FX spread is rarely disclosed as a line item but is often the largest variable cost for operators with international volume. How to measure it, what drives the spread, and how to negotiate it down.
9 min read
-
Real-Time Payment Rails Comparison Matrix
Operator reference table for 8 real-time rails — Pix, UPI, SPEI, PromptPay, PayNow, NAPAS 247, InstaPay, DuitNow — covering MDR model, settlement windows, identifiers, and cross-border readiness.
6 min read
-
US-Mexico Remittance Corridor: Infrastructure, Cost, and Fintech
The world's largest remittance corridor as a live case study: how fintech rails, bank correspondent networks, and real-time payment interconnects compete on cost and speed in a single high-volume corridor.
8 min read
-
Stablecoin Settlement Loop: Anatomy of a Cross-Border B2B Payment
What a B2B stablecoin payment looks like end-to-end: six stages, six providers, six failure modes. The full anatomy from fiat-in to fiat-out that most corridor comparisons skip.
12 min read
-
Stablecoin On/Off-Ramp Operations: Where the Cost Advantage Gets Eaten
On-chain settlement is cheap. The on-ramp and off-ramp at each end of the corridor is where the real cost accumulates — and what determines whether stablecoins actually beat SWIFT for your specific flow.
11 min read
-
Multi-Currency Treasury Architecture for Payment Operators
The treasury architecture capstone: once you understand the rails and costs, where do you actually hold balances, when do you convert, when do you hedge, and how do virtual IBANs and stablecoins fit your operating profile?
15 min read
Subscribers get the PSP Selection RFP Kit — 60+ structured questions, evaluation scorecard, and negotiation playbook — delivered to your inbox instantly.