Global Cross-Border Payments: A $1 Quadrillion Evolving Market?

Eugenio Cerutti, Melih Firat and Martina Hengge

No 2025/120, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Cross-border payments are essential to the global financial system, facilitating trade and investment. The global cross-border traditional and crypto payment market approached a value of about one quadrillion dollars in 2024, with crypto payments representing only a small fraction despite their recent surge. Focusing on data from Swift—the largest traditional cross-border financial messaging network—we study the characteristics and evolving patterns of these payments over 2021-24. Notably, payments are predominantly concentrated in advanced economies, and are driven by financial institutions and large transactions. While currency usage remains stable—with the U.S. dollar maintaining the largest share—the Chinese renminbi demonstrates signs of increasing global integration, albeit from a low base. Gravity model estimates confirm that traditional economic linkages, via trade, portfolio investment, and FDI, shape cross-border payments. However, aggregate dynamics mask substantial heterogeneity across message types (customer vs. financial related payments), currencies, and transaction sizes, with information asymmetries playing a diminished role in larger payments.

Keywords: Cross-Border Payments; Trade; FDI; Portfolio Investment; Networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53
Date: 2025-06-13
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=567604 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2025/120

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().