Asia cross-border payments lag despite digital leadership

The report has highlighted that while countries such as Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand have developed advanced domestic payment systems, including real-time networks like PayNow, InstaPay and PromptPay, international payment corridors across Asia have remained slow, costly and operationally complex.

An estimated $5 trillion has been held in pre-funded correspondent banking accounts at any given time, reflecting liquidity inefficiencies in global settlement systems. The whitepaper has noted that a typical $200 cross-border transfer has incurred fees ranging between 6% and 10%, while settlement times have extended over several days due to multiple intermediary banks and fragmented infrastructure.

Saber has argued that stablecoins have emerged as a potential settlement layer capable of improving speed and reducing friction in cross-border payments. However, the report has emphasised that blockchain-based settlement alone has not resolved the broader structural challenges in payment systems.

While blockchain transactions have been settled in seconds, the conversion of digital assets into local fiat currencies has remained complex due to regulatory fragmentation, liquidity constraints and last-mile banking limitations across different markets.

The whitepaper has identified 48 distinct regulatory frameworks across Asia, each with varying compliance requirements, identity verification rules and evolving Travel Rule implementations. This fragmentation has contrasted sharply with more unified systems such as Europe’s SEPA framework.

Liquidity has also been highlighted as a critical operational challenge. The report has noted that access to global stablecoin liquidity has not guaranteed sufficient depth in local currency pairs such as USDT/PHP or USDT/MYR, particularly during off-peak hours or periods of market stress.

Saber has further stated that many stablecoin-based payment pilots have struggled to transition into production environments due to underestimation of compliance, liquidity orchestration and operational requirements.

To address these challenges, the report has emphasised the need for dedicated orchestration layers capable of managing corridor-specific liquidity, ensuring regulatory compliance across jurisdictions and rerouting transactions during banking downtime.

Industry commentary within the whitepaper has suggested that effective cross-border payment infrastructure in Asia requires a combination of licensed payout partners, robust liquidity management systems and scalable compliance frameworks that can operate across multiple regulatory regimes simultaneously.

Saber executives have stated that the company has built infrastructure over the past two years focused on addressing these operational gaps, with an emphasis on enabling production-grade stablecoin payment flows.

The whitepaper has concluded that while Asia has set the global benchmark for domestic payment innovation, significant structural work has remained necessary to achieve similar efficiency in cross-border transactions, particularly as demand for faster, lower-cost international payments continues to grow.