There was a time when small businesses rarely sold outside their neighborhoods, much less their home state. That time is gone. Today’s Main Street small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly globally connected.
“SMBs make cross-border payment on a daily basis, not an occasional basis. It’s becoming part of mainstream banking rather than episodic or occasional banking.” Pratik Khowala, global head of transfer solutions at Mastercard, said to PYMNTS.
Companies that once relied exclusively on domestic suppliers now purchase items like ingredients from Mexico, electronics from China, packaging from Southeast Asia and specialty products from Europe. What was once considered enterprise-scale global commerce has become routine for companies of nearly every size.
That shift is fundamentally altering the economics and expectations surrounding cross-border payments.
“If banks don’t provide really intuitive, flexible and transparent solutions to these SMBs,” Khowala said, “it’s going to be very difficult for them to keep loyalty of those customers.”
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Read the report: The Cross-Border Opportunity: What Global Sourcing by US SMBs Means for Payment Providers
Speed Is Becoming the New Standard in Cross-Border Payments
According to recent PYMNTS Intelligence research in collaboration with Mastercard, nearly 6 in 10 U.S. SMBs now source goods or production inputs from overseas suppliers. In response to this trend, banks that see this rise in international sourcing are rethinking how they serve SMB customers who view cross-border capabilities as a primary offering.
The most immediate pressure point is speed. The research found that 43% of SMBs now rank speed as the primary factor when choosing a cross-border payments provider. That preference is not merely about convenience—it reflects the realities of managing working capital in unpredictable supply chains.
“Speed has always been a very important factor in cross-border money movement, but it has been getting more and more prominence over time,” Khowala said.
“If money takes two days to reach the supplier, the sending party needs to provision it two days ahead,” he added. “If they can move money instantly, that helps them to manage their cash flow predictability much better.”
For SMBs operating on tighter margins, delays in cross-border payments can materially affect operational flexibility. The impact extends beyond treasury management. Faster payments also influence supplier relationships, particularly for smaller businesses that may not have the leverage or balance-sheet strength of larger corporate buyers. Reliable and predictable payment timing can improve trust between buyers and suppliers operating across borders.
“SMEs want to improve their bottom line, get more into their working capital cycle, and that can happen if they get the best FX rate. Second would be payment confirmation and payment tracing,” Khowala said.
Traditional Infrastructure Is Under Pressure
At the same time, the traditional infrastructure supporting cross-border commerce is being challenged by FinTech firms that prioritize simplicity, transparency and speed.
“SMBs are not as sophisticated as large corporates who are used to having big treasuries managing all those payments. They want an intuitive platform which they can go and execute their payment transactions on,” said Khowala, noting that the report showed FinTech providers gaining meaningful traction among internationally active SMBs.
Khowala noted that FinTechs are increasingly expanding their offerings to meet a broader range of SMB needs, including taking deposits and enabling local payments—services traditionally provided by banks.
Cross-border payments may initially appear to be a single product category, but FinTechs are working to turn them into an entry point into the broader banking relationship.
“A cross-border specialist is providing a full banking solution to an SME. Banks start losing those relationships, and cross-border is just a starting point,” Khowala explained.
Mastercard addresses this shift through Mastercard Move, a platform built to support faster settlement, end-to-end transparency and broader cross-border reach. By moving away from legacy correspondent banking pathways—which can limit visibility and introduce delays—Mastercard Move enables more direct integrations and clearer insight across the payment lifecycle. Today, Mastercard Move reaches more than 200 countries and territories and supports over 150 currencies.
“Banks can offer it as a white-label service,” he said, explaining the approach allows financial institutions to maintain the customer relationship while upgrading the underlying payments experience. “They have the trust of their SMBs. They don’t know that Move is in the background, but they offer it as a service powered by Move.”
For SMBs navigating international supply chains, the expectation is no longer simply that money moves across borders—it is that it moves with the same speed, transparency and predictability they expect elsewhere in the digital world.
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