Notes on correspondent banking, local clearing access, payment networks, efficiency, and compliance.
10 posts
Starting from Indonesia's QRIS cross-border progress, this article separates four layers of QR payments: symbol encoding, EMVCo data structures, national QR schemes and cross-border links. It compares major QR standards and China's Cross-Border QR Code Unified Gateway, and traces the information flow, FX conversion and settlement behind a cross-border QR payment.
The Swift Payments Scheme builds on existing bank networks and has banks on both the sending and receiving side follow shared rules on fees, FX rates, amount received, delivery time and status tracking. This article examines its roles, information and funds flows, 2026 rollout and limits.
A comprehensive analysis of the BIS-incubated Nexus multilateral fast payment network, examining its four-layer architecture, decoupled message and funds flows, competitive FX provider model, and institutional boundaries.
An in-depth breakdown of bilateral fast payment linkages—PayNow–PromptPay, FPS–PromptPay, and Payment Connect—analyzing their five-layer architecture, settlement bank mechanisms, FX liquidity, and the evolution toward the Nexus multilateral network.
Deconstruct the balance of payments accounting framework, clarify the differences between FX administration and BOP statistics, and analyze quotas and reporting.
An in-depth analysis of Mastercard Wallet Pay's interoperability architecture, examining acceptance, clearing, and final settlement layers through an overseas transaction by a Hong Kong AlipayHK user.
An in-depth analysis of the architectural evolution behind Swift's blockchain-based shared ledger. Starting from the classic division between messaging and funds flows, this article dissects the dual-tier accounting model of tokenised deposits, explores the timing gap and liquidity dynamics between 24/7 payment execution and offline final settlement, and objectively compares Swift's model with the BIS unified ledger blueprint.
This article explains ISO 20022's four-layer architecture, governance and maintenance process, the boundary between messaging and funds flows, global RTGS migration, and the structural frictions that remain after adoption.
Swift data shows that 75% of cross-border payments reach the beneficiary bank within 10 minutes, yet about 80% of end-to-end time is spent on the beneficiary side's last mile. This article analyzes five structural frictions and examines the competition in end-to-end orchestration.
Starting with a US$100,000 remittance, this article explains correspondent banking, SWIFT, foreign exchange, and settlement mechanics, and surveys the main paths of G20 cross-border payments reform.