The report “Cross-Border Interbank Payments and Settlements” is a cross-jurisdictional industry collaboration between Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom to examine the existing challenges and frictions that arise when undertaking cross-border payments. This report explores proposals for new and more efficient models for processing cross-border transactions.

The project was initiated by the Bank of Canada (BOC), the Bank of England (BOE) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in consultation for domain knowledge with subject matter experts from a group of commercial banks led by HSBC. Other commercial banks in the group include Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC Bank), Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank) and United Overseas Bank (UOB). KPMG Services Pte. Ltd (KPMG) helped facilitate a workshop between these participants to discuss views on this topic, and compiled views from them to assist in the development of this report.

This report is aimed at developing further insights into the challenges and root causes of issues associated with cross-border interbank payments and settlements. These insights are used to derive desired outcomes, which we refer to as “future-state capabilities.” A persistent challenge in addressing issues in cross-border payments relates to coordination and perspective. By bringing together several banks from different countries and three central banks, this report provides insight into the root causes in challenges relating to cross-border payments, while being agnostic of the context, and undertakes an appraisal of the limits of technological innovation.