In 2020, the Group of Twenty (G20) launched its Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-Border Payments to “benefit citizens and economies worldwide, supporting economic growth, international trade, global development and financial inclusion.”
The roadmap aims to make payments “faster, cheaper, and more transparent and inclusive,” while “maintaining their safety and security.” For four of these five goals, the G20 has set global quantitative targets, covering wholesale, retail, and remittance payments, but the “safety and security” goal does not have targets.
Yet the roadmap process has lacked one critical element: a systematic assessment of whether its ambitious goals are mutually compatible, or whether progress toward one may come at the expense of another.
The ‘travel rule’ as a test case for competing goals
The revised “travel rule” offers a concrete example of the potential tradeoffs the Financial Stability Board (FSB), tasked with coordinating the roadmap’s implementation, may need to consider.
