Delivering a secure, frictionless global payments experience with AI

Facing surging customer demand for real-time payments and mounting regulatory pressures, banks must adapt their payment systems - a daunting task of modernising complex legacy infrastructure.

By partnering with agile global payments providers that leverage AI, banks can increase operational efficiency and access new currency routes with ease, avoiding the headache of a major technical overhaul.

Combined with a robust global network, these AI-powered solutions used by providers are designed to enhance processing, reduce friction, detect fraud and streamline communication - all with the goal of delivering a seamless, instant customer experience.

Rapidly evolving expectations

It’s an age-old dilemma: while domestic payments are processed with ease and immediacy, international payments remain slow, inhibited by complex processes and disconnected networks.

The rise of instant payment networks, such as PIX, SEPA and FedNow, has heightened consumer expectations. Customers now expect speedier global transactions, rendering lengthy, multi-day delays increasingly unacceptable, particularly when fees can climb as high as 6.25%.1,2

Aiming to address this challenge, the G20 has set an ambitious 2027 target for 75% of cross-border payments to reach beneficiaries within one hour.3 This goal has accelerated the adoption of AI among payment providers, as they work to automate manual tasks and streamline their processes.

Faced with an evolving market, banks must adapt by offering faster, more affordable and more convenient global payment services. Failing to meet these rising demands risks significant market share losses to competitors with more attractive payment solutions.

Reducing customer friction

Regulatory and market pressures have become crucial catalysts, compelling banks to rethink their cross-border payment offerings. The proliferation of bank-fintech partnerships further underscores the transformative impact of these industry trends. To enhance the cross-border payments experience for customers, many banks are now collaborating with global payment infrastructure providers.

These partnerships facilitate faster transaction speeds and more accurate exchange rates while maintaining robust compliance - areas where payment infrastructure providers can leverage AI to optimise operations and reduce friction.

"Over the last year, Wise has processed 1.2 billion payments with a team of only 300 people, thanks in part to our use of ML and AI to automatically resolve customer contact in near real-time."

As a trusted global payment infrastructure provider, Wise Platform empowers banks to deliver a seamless cross-border payments experience for their customers. By leveraging our trusted global network, banks can offer fast, low cost cross-border payments services without a costly systems upgrade. By integrating our leading infrastructure, our partners can access our network with five direct connections into payment systems and 90+ banking partners.

Sonia-Carla Ciocirlie, Wise Platform's Head of Business Operations, elaborated on the company’s scalable approach.“By automating manual tasks and reducing customer friction through the use of automation, machine learning and large language models, Wise Platform has achieved a straight-through processing rate of 99% for its international payments,” Ciocirlie said. This AI-enhanced approach lays the foundation for offering an improved customer experience for our partners.

Transforming fraud detection

Global payment providers are also increasingly using AI to enhance customer security. AI-powered monitoring allows for more efficient and precise fraud detection, revolutionising the speed and security of cross-border payments.

AI algorithms can detect potential fraud by comparing a customer's current transactions against their historical activity. For example, if a customer typically makes small domestic payments but suddenly initiates a large international transfer to a high-risk location, the algorithm may flag this deviation as a potential anomaly indicative of fraudulent behaviour.

What’s more, AI can use geolocation data to determine if a transaction originates from the customer's usual location. Transactions from unfamiliar areas without prior history are flagged as potentially suspicious.

"Every day, more than 150 machine learning algorithms analyse seven million transactions, performing 80 checks per second to identify potential fraud, sanctions violations and anti-money laundering (AML) risks.”

Payment infrastructure providers are increasingly leveraging machine learning (ML) algorithms - a set of rules used by AI systems to conduct tasks - to help rapidly analyse massive amounts of data and identify suspicious activity. This allows them to flag potential fraud, sanctions violations, and anti-money laundering (AML) risks for further investigation, ultimately providing customers with a more secure and enhanced experience.

Thanks to Wise’s machine learning-driven processes, Wise Platform has dramatically improved the efficiency and efficacy of our fraud detection and sanctions compliance efforts. Ciocirlie explained, "Every day, more than 150 machine learning algorithms analyse seven million transactions, performing 80 checks per second to identify potential fraud, sanctions violations and anti-money laundering (AML) risks.”*

Enhancing customer communication

Given the wide range of AI applications, it's unsurprising that financial institutions and payments providers are leveraging this technology to enhance customer support. This involves deploying chatbots for immediate responses and using algorithms to deliver personalised customer communications.

In particular, Wise has harnessed AI to enable fast customer responses to straightforward issues. As Ciocirlie notes, "Over the last year, Wise has processed 1.2 billion payments with a team of only 300 people, thanks in part to our use of ML and AI to automatically resolve customer contact in near real-time."

And, while the Wise Platform team prioritises automation, we also ensure personalised support is available for more complex customer inquiries.

Today, the array of support options is broader than ever, and the potential to harness AI-powered solutions for exceptional customer experiences is virtually limitless.

Tomorrow and beyond

The integration of AI into cross-border payment processing is transforming the customer experience, enabling instant, streamlined transactions.

As AI technology continues to advance, the global payments industry can anticipate even more innovative solutions emerging to help payments infrastructure providers, service providers and banks meet the G20 payment targets.

Partnering with Wise Platform enables banks to enhance the speed and efficiency of their cross-border payments services while lowering costs, without the need to rebuild or upgrade their existing infrastructure. By delivering a world-class payment experience, our partners can increase customer satisfaction and build loyalty, ensuring they retain and grow customer share.

Find out more

1. Bank of England (2023). “Cross-border payments.”
2. IMF (2024). “How Training and Advice Can Speed Cross-Border Payments and Cut Costs.”
3. Financial Stability Board (2024). “G20 Targets for Enhancing Cross-border Payments.”

*The information provided is accurate as of the date of publication