What SMEs Actually Want From the Cross-Border Payments Experience: Mastercard

Quick Summary

Pratik Khowala, Executive Vice President, Global Head of Transfer Solutions at Mastercard, explains what SMEs mean when they say "experience" matters: a front end as intuitive as a domestic transfer, plus data and services such as invoice reconciliation and ERP integration. With 92% of SMEs already juggling multiple providers, he argues they are firmly in the driving seat.

What do SMEs want from their cross-border experience?

Large corporates have treasurers and infrastructure built for the nuances of moving money internationally; SMEs know their business, not the mechanics of cross-border payments. Khowala says the first ask is ease of transacting: a front end intuitive enough that sending money abroad feels the same as a domestic transfer.

What comes after ease of use?

The second ask is data and services around the payment itself: can the provider handle invoice reconciliation, and can it integrate into the ERP systems an SME already runs on? Khowala says these "added values" are being appreciated more than ever, now that cost, transparency and speed have become baseline expectations rather than differentiators.

Why does this put SMEs in the driving seat?

With 92% of SMEs already using multiple providers, Khowala says the market power sits with the customer. Banks and fintechs, he argues, need to differentiate on more than cost, transparency and speed if they want to consolidate that fragmented usage, and that is where he sees demand building fastest.

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"Feels like a domestic payment" is a deceptively hard bar to clear across 11 trade corridors, and it explains why Khowala keeps returning to user experience rather than price. If reconciliation and ERP integration are genuinely what tips an SME from using three providers to trusting one, that is a services and data play as much as a payments one.