The global business-to-business (B2B) payments market is projected to grow from USD 97.88 trillion in 2025 to USD 213.28 trillion by 2032. With such an enormous market size, businesses are bound to deal with buyers and suppliers from across the globe. This means payments must move across different countries, currencies and banking systems, making cross-border transactions a critical and technically complex part of global commerce.
Cross-border payments are financial transactions where the payer and the recipient are located in different countries. These can occur between individuals, businesses, or financial institutions and typically involve currency exchange, international banking networks and regulatory compliance.
In a B2B context, cross-border payments happen when a business pays a foreign supplier, contractor or partner. For example, a U.S.-based company purchasing raw materials from a manufacturer in Germany would need to make a cross-border payment.
Compared to consumer cross-border transactions, B2B cross-border transactions come with significantly more complexity and risk. In the B2B world, transactions typically involve much higher payment volumes and multiple parties, which increases exposure to financial crime, fraud and cyberattacks. In addition, businesses must navigate a web of international banking standards, tax laws, foreign exchange requirements and anti-money laundering (AML) regulations – all of which vary by country and jurisdiction. Ensuring compliance across these multiple touchpoints is not only resource-intensive but also essential to avoid penalties and maintain trust between global partners. These factors make B2B cross-border payments far more intricate than consumer-level transactions.
Let’s take a deeper dive into some of the main challenges:
"International payments can be expensive due to high processing fees, currency exchange rates and additional charges imposed by financial institutions. However, becoming savvy and knowing how to navigate these different payment methods is crucial to help you get ahead.
While some suppliers may hesitate to accept cards due to perceived fees, solutions that create a win-win scenario that offers pricing flexibility that benefits both parties are optimal. This is why selecting the right partner to facilitate cross-border payments is mission-critical."
-Dean M. Leavitt, Founder and CEO
Businesses have several options when it comes to sending and receiving cross-border payments, each with its own advantages, costs, and operational considerations. The choice of payment method often depends on factors like transaction size, destination country, currency exchange requirements, speed, and the level of transparency or documentation needed. Below are some of the most commonly used cross-border payment methods in B2B transactions:
What is it:
A bank transfer moves funds directly from one business bank account to another. For international payments, this often relies on the correspondent banking network, where one or more intermediary banks help route the payment between banks that don’t have a direct relationship.
How it works:
Your bank sends payment instructions to one or more intermediary banks, which then forward the funds to the recipient's bank.
Pros:
Cons:
What it is:
A wire transfer is a more direct and formal type of electronic payment, often used for one-off or urgent B2B payments. It’s typically processed individually rather than in batches, which makes it faster—but also more expensive.
How it works:
Initiated through a bank, wire transfers send payment instructions directly to the recipient’s bank (sometimes still via intermediaries), settling the funds on a per-transaction basis.
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Cons:
What it is:
EFT is a catch-all term for electronic payments between bank accounts. In a domestic setting, this includes methods like ACH (U.S.), SEPA (EU), direct deposit, e-checks, and debit transactions. Cross-border EFTs exist but are not standardized globally, which limits their use in international B2B payments.
How it works:
Funds are moved electronically between accounts, often in batch processing, which reduces cost. However, cross-border EFTs may require additional infrastructure or bank partnerships to work effectively.
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Cons:
What it is:
Commercial cards, including corporate cards, purchasing cards (P-Cards) and virtual cards, are issued to businesses for operational spend including supplier payments. For cross-border B2B payments, they offer a fast and data-rich alternative to traditional banking rails. These payments are processed over global card networks like Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
How it works:
The buyer uses a commercial card to pay a supplier. The supplier must be set up to accept card payments. The card network processes the payment, and funds are settled often faster than wire or bank transfer methods. Virtual cards are often issued for one-time or recurring payments and can be customized with controls.
Pros:
Cons:
While commercial cards offer speed, visibility, and valuable financial benefits, they have traditionally faced barriers in the cross-border B2B space, particularly around supplier acceptance, high processing fees, and limited flexibility. Boost 100XB® was developed to solve these challenges by enabling businesses to use their existing U.S.-issued commercial card programs to pay global suppliers, regardless of how those suppliers prefer to get paid. The solution initiates the transaction on the card rails and then settles it using the supplier’s preferred payment method and currency.
This approach expands card acceptance, reduces friction, and lowers supplier acceptance costs compared to traditional card processing. Boost 100 XB also provides detailed remittance data for easier reconciliation and ensures secure, compliant, and cost-efficient global payments. For buyers, it unlocks the ability to pay 100 percent of their suppliers by card, maximizing rebate potential, supporting early payment discount opportunities, and extending Days Payable Outstanding (DPO), all while improving relationships with global suppliers.