B2B payments: cross-border payouts
06
Market and trends
4 min read · Chapter 6 of 10
Who holds the power
Power follows the licence and the dollar access, and a payout fintech rents both.
- US partner banks decide whom the fintech may serve: in 2024 a US business-banking fintech closed accounts with addresses in Ukraine and about 13 African countries after reported regulator concern about its partner bank.
- Correspondent banks decide whether a corridor exists at all.
- Beneficiary banks and local partners decide speed and success.
- Regulators and the US Treasury can cut anyone off, as FinCEN's orders against three Mexican institutions did from October 20, 2025.
- Card networks set push rules and earn on cross-border volume.
- Clients hold power at contract, little after; workers gain it after a mistake, when recovery needs their consent.
"You rent the licence" has counter-evidence at the top. The public cross-border transfer company reports direct rail connections in Brazil and Japan and new licences in South Africa, the UAE and Thailand in fiscal 2026. The public SMB payout company bought two EORs and agreed to buy a card processor; a corporate payments company bought a UK FX firm in November 2025. Meanwhile take rates (revenue as a share of volume) fell in every retail cross-border segment from 2022 to 2025, by one market-data firm's count. Nobody I read reports this directly, but I think the largest payout companies are buying the licences, entities and rail access they used to rent, as the margin in the rate shrinks.
Tailwinds and headwinds
These are the forces I'd expect anyone in cross-border payouts to watch as of October 2026, and each one helps some players and hurts others. The large payout specialists with their own licences end up on the winning side of most of them, apart from falling prices, which they're driving.
Tailwinds:
| What's changing | Who gains | Who loses |
|---|---|---|
| More countries run 24/7 instant rails that payout firms can reach directly, and Pix handled about a quarter more payments in 2025 than the year before. | Local payout networks (dLocal, Thunes, TerraPay, Nium, EBANX); specialists that prefund (Wise, Airwallex); Visa Direct and Mastercard Move; the rail operators | Correspondent banking income per wire (BNY, Deutsche Bank and other correspondents); providers without local partners; US payout fintechs that still need a bank |
| Companies keep hiring and buying services abroad, and India's software services exports grew about 8% in the year to March 2026. | Deel, Remote, Rippling, Papaya Global; Payoneer, Wise and Airwallex on contractor and services payouts; local payout networks in India, Mexico and the Philippines | Banks' share of small business and contractor payouts |
| Banks are plugging payout specialists into their own apps instead of building their own, and Wise has signed banks such as UniCredit and Capitec onto its platform over the past year. | Wise, Corpay, Citi (which sells WorldLink to other banks), Visa, Mastercard, Thunes, Nium; the banks, which keep the customer | Mid-size banks' own FX desks; specialists that sell only direct and compete with bank distribution |
| The Fed raised rates in September 2026 for the first time since 2023, so interest on held balances has stopped shrinking for now. | Wise, Payoneer, Circle, Tether; EOR platforms holding pre-funded payroll (Deel, Remote, Papaya Global); banks' deposit income | Customers, for whom float is a hidden price; stablecoin holders, since the GENIUS Act bars issuers from paying yield |
| Stablecoins now have a US law and big owners, since Mastercard bought BVNK and Stripe bought Bridge. | Circle, Tether, Bridge (Stripe), BVNK (Mastercard); Thunes and Nium as members of Circle's payments network | Correspondents on treasury moves between currencies; providers whose margin is the spread in hard-to-reach corridors, if off-ramps get cheap |
Headwinds:
| What's changing | Who gains | Who loses |
|---|---|---|
| Fees are now shown upfront, so revenue grows slower than volume, and Wise expects to keep cutting its take rate a little every quarter. | Customers; the lowest-cost scale players (Wise, Airwallex) | Banks' FX margins on small business wires (JPMorgan, Citi, HSBC); dLocal and other local networks on margin per payout; Payoneer's small-business pricing; Visa and Mastercard on push yield |
| Rules ask for more data on every payout and penalties are bigger, with Canada's maximum penalties up 40-fold since March 2026. | Licensed players with their own compliance teams (Wise, Airwallex, Payoneer, Corpay); global banks that sell compliance with access (JPMorgan, Citi); Swift | Small payout fintechs renting a bank; local partners in higher-risk corridors; customers paying into countries banks avoid |
| Courts and lawmakers are narrowing when a full-time worker can be paid as a contractor, and Brazilian claims seeking employment status rose 57% in 2024. | EOR platforms (Deel, Remote, Papaya Global, Rippling); contractor-of-record products priced for the risk | Contractor-only payout products; companies relying on contractors, and contractors' take-home pay |
| More destinations want payout firms licensed or incorporated locally, and the Philippines gives foreign remittance platforms two years to move into a local subsidiary. | Players already licensed (Wise, Airwallex, Payoneer, dLocal, EBANX); networks selling licensed local access (Thunes, TerraPay, Nium) | Sub-scale fintechs; EORs and platforms that rely on a single local partner |
| India's largest IT services firms cut headcount last fiscal year, citing AI, which could slow the offshore work that payouts depend on; it's too early to see in payout data. | Payout providers spread across many kinds of work and corridors | Per-head EOR and contractor platforms (Deel, Remote, Papaya Global), if hiring abroad slows; India corridor volume for Wise, Payoneer and local networks |
If I could watch only one thing, it would be the take rate the public payout companies such as Wise and Payoneer report each quarter, because cheaper prices, new rails and stablecoins all show up there first.