What Role Do Cross-Border Payments and Alternative Settlement Rails Play in Unlocking the “Next Billion” Customers?

This conversation with Freemarket, Fincra and Axiym explores how better cross-border payments and alternative settlement rails can unlock the “next trillion” in value and customers, especially for emerging markets and Africa. It starts with the reminder that payments aren’t just a back-office function, they’re core infrastructure for how economies grow, how businesses expand and how everyday people move money to each other.

One of the key themes is Africa’s fragmentation as the continent’s borders, regulations and financial systems were never really designed to work seamlessly together. Each country in the African continent has its own rules, rails and limits, which makes something as simple as paying a supplier in another African country, or in China, for example, slow, expensive and frustrating. Traditional rails like SWIFT are often capped at low transaction limits and require repeated transfers, each with separate fees. This is where modern cross-border infrastructure and alternative settlement systems, such as stablecoins, come in: they cut out a lot of the friction and bureaucracy while still respecting compliance requirements.

The discussion also underlines that no single company can fix cross-border payments alone. Instead, progress comes from a network of specialists who each understand their home markets deeply and plug into one another’s strengths. Rather than trying to operate everywhere, firms focus on what they do best, whether that’s African settlement infrastructure, liquidity and lending solutions, or global network orchestration and then connect those capabilities. That collaborative, “complementary” approach creates a more efficient, interoperable payment fabric across regions.

Improved cross-border payments are positioned as a key growth driver for emerging markets as history shows that countries grow by connecting to larger markets, exporting goods and services, and accessing more consumers. When cross-border payments work well, they speed up trade flows, make it easier for businesses to serve customers abroad, and help money move quickly and reliably meanwhile on a human level, it’s everything from someone sending birthday money home, to a coffee shop receiving that money in local currency, to a large shipment being paid for across continents.

The message from Freemarket, Fincra and Axiym is simple but powerful: if you want real economic integration and growth, in Africa and globally, you have to fix how money moves across borders. Cross-border payment companies and alternative settlement rails are the hidden backbone that makes trade, commerce and financial inclusion possible, and they’re central to unlocking the next wave of growth in financial services.