On 23 February 2023, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) published a report on the G20 Roadmap for enhancing cross-border payments (the Roadmap).

In October 2022, the FSB published a prioritisation plan and engagement model for taking the Roadmap forward. The plan showed that the Roadmap had reached an inflection point and needed to move to implementing practical projects to enhance cross-border payment arrangements to achieve the quantitative targets that had been established.

Drawing from the analyses to date and the feedback received from stakeholders, the FSB, the Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and partner bodies identified three themes for orientating and focusing the next phase of the Roadmap.

This latest report details the specific actions that will be taken under the three priority themes to move the Roadmap forward and achieve the targets by the 2027 target date.

The three interconnected themes are:

  • Payment system interoperability and extension – this theme will include the CPMI convening a forum to exchange information and experiences among interested central banks on developing or upgrading their payment systems. There will also be a G20 workshop on interlinking the faster payments service. The CPMI (in consultation with public and private sector stakeholders) will also finalise the requirements for service level agreements/schemes that stakeholders can use as a starting point when establishing agreements.
  • Legal, regulatory and supervisory finalising frameworks – this theme will include an FSB working group on bank and non-bank supervision to develop recommendations, as needed, for strengthening consistency of the application of regulation and supervision to banks and non-banks providing cross-border payment services in a way that is proportional to their respective risks. The theme will also cover updating anti-money laundering rules and will include enhancing the Financial Action Task Force rules on wire transfers.
  • Cross–border data exchange and message standards – this theme will include the FSB developing recommendations, for public consultation, for promoting alignment and interoperability across data frameworks applicable to cross-border payments. It will also cover finalising the ISO 20022 harmonisation requirements and promoting their real world implementation and improving application programming interface harmonisation for cross-border payments use.