Retail banking has reached a turning point, and customers expect more from their everyday bank – faster digital experiences, clearer payment journeys and the ability to move money internationally without switching apps or relying on unfamiliar providers.

Banks want to deliver that. They want to give customers a complete experience inside their own channels. But doing that without adding more compliance exposure or operational load is the real challenge.

This is where the real tension sits. Banks know their customers want more, but they cannot afford to take on more exposure – and cross-border payments is one of the few services where those pressures collide in a very real way.

For many banks, cross-border payments have slipped into the too hard basket.

The business case looks simple on paper. Customers want to send and receive money overseas through the bank they already trust. There is clear demand and clear value. Yet when it comes time to decide whether to offer or expand existing cross-border payments capabilities, risk, effort and resourcing often outweigh the potential upside.

This tension sits at the heart of how modern banks think about cross-border payments. For banks already offering cross-border payments, the risks and internal effort have been an ongoing concern since day one. For banks wanting to offer cross-border payments, these concerns are a roadblock. In both cases, banks are left thinking there must be a better way.

Why banks avoid cross-border payments even when customers want it

When you dig into why cross-border payments fall down the priority list, the same concerns appear. The biggest blockers are usually:

• cross-border payments are seen as high exposure and high-risk relative to its revenue opportunity

• compliance teams need more oversight, more checks and more reporting

• internal systems are not built to handle multi-currency flows

• the belief that specialist teams or licensing uplift will be required

• support teams will be pulled into more exceptions and errors

None of these concerns are unreasonable. They reflect the reality of traditional cross-border payments delivery which placed all responsibility squarely on the bank. Under that model, the risk profile simply does not stack up.

The role of regulatory expectations

Compliance teams define the boundaries banks must operate within. Their assessments shape which services move forward and which ones pause – and as those requirements increase, so does the scrutiny on any new capability a bank considers.

Every additional payment type introduces more checking, more controls and more reporting. In this environment, adding cross-border payments feels less like an expansion and more like taking on a new obligation. That perception alone is enough to stall decisions even when the customer benefit is clear.

Yet this is also where many banks overestimate the lift required. The assumption is that offering cross-border payments means owning every part of the process. That is no longer the only model.

The misconception that cross-border payments requires specialist internal teams

Traditional cross-border payments models needed currency teams, dedicated operations and systems that could support multi-market routing. For smaller banks this was simply out of reach.

What has changed is the way cross-border payments can now be delivered. Banks do not need to build or maintain the full tech stack, they don’t need to stand up new teams and they don’t need to carry the reporting and compliance load alone.

This shift is what makes cross-border payments possible for banks that want to improve and derisk their existing offering or those that had previously ruled it out entirely.

How payments partners like Send remove the risk so banks can focus on the customer

Send gives banks a way to offer international payments without taking on the parts of cross-border payments that cause the most hesitation.

As a regulated remittance provider, Send performs AML, KYC and transaction monitoring activities for the services it provides, supported by mature controls and specialist infrastructure.

Applicable regulatory reporting is managed by Send for those services, with responsibilities clearly defined between Send and its banking partners.

Banks continue to meet their own regulatory obligations, including oversight and due diligence on partners. What changes is the amount of new capability they need to design, build and operate themselves.

Send manages the underlying cross-border payment processes that drive operational complexity and risk, enabling banks to rely on an established, supervised framework rather than creating one from scratch.

How better cross-border payments improves customer relationships and overall service value

When banks offer a simple, fast and transparent way to send money overseas, the impact shows up across the relationship and customers stay with their bank because the entire experience feels consistent and straightforward.

They are not juggling multiple apps or comparing options every time they need to move money overseas. Instead, the bank becomes the place they naturally come to complete more of their financial activity because it works the way they expect, without extra steps or awkward detours into unfamiliar providers.

That shift strengthens trust, increases activity and pulls more value back into channels the bank already owns.

A better way forward for banks

The question for banks is no longer whether they can take on cross-border payments. It is whether they can continue leaving a core customer need unmet at a time when competitors are moving faster.

Modern delivery models change what is possible. They remove the heavy lifting that once made cross-border payments feel unmanageable and give banks a way to broaden their digital experience without stretching internal teams or rebuilding core systems. For banks already offering cross-border payments, these new delivery models can drastically reduce the current level of risk, streamline processes and alleviate the load on internal teams and resources.

With the risk and complexity handled behind the scenes, banks can focus on meeting customer expectations with a service that feels integrated, safe and easy to deliver.

If your team is reviewing how to broaden your customer experience, improve your existing cross-border payments capabilities or exploring how cross-border payments fit within your modernisation strategy, now is the right time to look at what a low risk, high value model can unlock.

By James Read, Chief Growth Officer at Send Payments.