How to Set Up an Efficient Payment System with Foreign Partners: Best Practices for Global Firms

International payments stopped being the exclusive domain of multinational corporations years ago. Mid-sized businesses actively expand into foreign markets, bringing the need for reliable money transfer channels.

The issue isn't that old methods don't work at all. They were built for a different era. Fees eat up 3-7% of transfer amounts, money travels for three to five business days, and currency rates shift so rapidly that finance directors can't keep up with budget planning. Add different regulatory requirements in each jurisdiction, the necessity of opening foreign bank accounts, and constant delays through compliance systems.

Business process globalization forces companies to seek alternatives.

Why Traditional Banks Lose on Speed

SWIFT has existed since 1973, and the system's basic architecture hasn't undergone radical changes since then. For businesses already experimenting with B2B crypto solutions, this gap is especially visible: a payment from Warsaw to Singapore still crawls through a chain of correspondent banks. Each one takes a fee, applies local rules, and stretches a simple transfer into a multi-day process.

Germany's Wirecard (before its scandalous collapse in 2020) showed how vulnerable even recognized financial infrastructure can be. But the real pain for business isn't potential fraud — it's daily routine. A supplier in Vietnam waits for payment, the transfer goes out Monday, and money appears in their account only Friday. During this time, the dollar rate changed, and the amount turned out smaller than both sides calculated.

Cross-border payments through classic banks cost an average of 6.25% of the sum, according to Bank for International Settlements data for 2024. For a small company transferring $50,000 monthly to suppliers in China or Turkey, that's an additional $3,125 in expenses. Multiply by twelve months — nearly $38,000 in pure losses just on commissions.

Digital Payment Platforms: What They Actually Deliver

PayPal, Payoneer, Wise (formerly TransferWise) built businesses on the promise of making international transfers simpler. To some extent, they kept that promise. Registration takes hours instead of weeks, fees run lower than banks, and interfaces remain understandable even for those who haven't worked with foreign markets before.

Stripe Atlas helps startups register in the U.S. and immediately gain access to American payment infrastructure. This works for software companies, freelancers, agencies. If the business involves monthly subscriptions or one-time sales of digital products, problems usually don't arise.

Complications begin where volumes grow larger and specifics get more complex. Wise limits one-time transfers to £1 million (roughly $1.3 million), and for many B2B deals that's insufficient. Payoneer blocks accounts without warning if their algorithms consider a transaction suspicious. Restoring access can take weeks while a counterparty waits for payment.

Another point: geography. Not all countries get equally good coverage from these services. Try quickly transferring money to Nigeria, Pakistan, or Uzbekistan — and discover that available options shrink dramatically.

Cryptocurrencies in B2B Settlements: Reality Without Hype

Bitcoin appeared in 2009 as an alternative to traditional finance, but its mass adoption in corporate payments happened much later. Tesla bought $1.5 billion in BTC in 2021, then partially sold. MicroStrategy turned its balance sheet into a crypto vault. These cases created media noise but didn't answer the main question: does an ordinary company selling equipment to Poland or buying fabrics from India need crypto?

Advantages seem obvious. Transferring USDT (a stablecoin pegged to the dollar) from one wallet to another takes minutes regardless of where sender and receiver are located. Commission — fractions of a percent. No intermediary banks, no weekends, no delays for holiday periods. Money moves around the clock.

Overstock started accepting bitcoin for goods back in 2014, later creating the tZERO platform for tokenizing securities. Burger King in Germany experimented with crypto payments through an app. These remain niche stories, but they show the direction of movement.

The main obstacle — volatility. Even stablecoins sometimes deviate from dollar parity by several percent. USDC lost its peg in March 2023 after Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, though it recovered within a couple of days. For a company with thin margins, even brief drops can mean losses.

Regulatory uncertainty hasn't gone anywhere either. The European Union launched MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) in 2024, establishing clear rules for stablecoin issuers and exchanges. The U.S. moves slower still, with the SEC suing Ripple and Coinbase while Congress can't pass nationwide regulatory frameworks.

Multi-Currency Accounts: Convenience with Caveats

The idea is straightforward: open one account supporting dozens of currencies and convert between them as needed. Revolut Business, Airwallex, Currencycloud offer exactly this. A British company can hold euros, dollars, yen, pounds in one account and pay suppliers in their local currency without extra conversions.

Airwallex processed over $50 billion in transactions for 100,000+ clients in three years of operation. Their model: no fixed transfer commission, but you pay the spread on currency exchange. Usually 0.3-0.6%, which still beats banks.

The problem — these platforms aren't always independent players. They operate on top of existing banking licenses through partnerships. If a partner changes terms or faces regulatory problems, the service can stop working in certain countries or for certain business types.

Another nuance: limits. Revolut Business allows holding up to £20 million in an account, but exceeding a certain monthly transaction volume can trigger requests for additional documentation on fund origins. This is normal compliance procedure, but it creates delays precisely when they're least desirable.

Building Payment Strategy Without Single Point of Failure

Dependence on one channel represents the biggest vulnerability in international settlements. If all payments go through one bank and it suddenly changes tariffs or introduces restrictions, the company gets trapped. Diversification works here the same as in portfolio investing.

A practical approach: main bank account for large transactions, digital platform like Wise for medium amounts, LetsExchange or another crypto service for quick transfers to countries with limited banking access. Each tool covers its segment of tasks.

French company Qonto, which provides banking services for SMBs, integrated APIs from several payment solution providers. Clients in their interface select the best route automatically: the system compares commissions, speed, rates and suggests the optimal variant.

Automation is critical. If a financial manager manually chooses between five different platforms for each payment, it eats time and creates space for errors. API integrations with ERP systems like SAP, Oracle, NetSuite allow launching payments automatically after invoice approval.

Compliance and Taxes: What Gets Forgotten Until the First Audit

Each country has its own rules regarding international transfers, and ignoring them costs dearly. FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) forces American companies to report all foreign accounts. CRS (Common Reporting Standard) created a global network of tax information exchange between 100+ countries.

When paying a counterparty in Singapore, understanding whether withholding tax at source applies under a double taxation avoidance agreement becomes necessary. Mistakes here mean penalties from both home and Singapore tax authorities.

AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures got tougher after 2020. Banks demand documents confirming fund sources, payment purposes, counterparty beneficial ownership. Without providing this information quickly, payments hang.

Some companies hire specialized legal firms like PwC or Deloitte for payment process audits. This costs tens of thousands of dollars annually but saves millions on fines and reputational losses.

Hedging Currency Risks Without Major Banks

Currency fluctuations can turn a profitable deal unprofitable in days. British retail chain Tesco lost £350 million in 2016 due to sharp pound devaluation after Brexit. For small businesses, such losses mean bankruptcy.

Forwards and options — standard hedging instruments, but usually offered only to large clients with million-dollar turnovers. Platforms like Bound or CurrencyBird democratized this market, allowing companies with turnover from $500,000 annually to lock in rates months ahead.

An alternative approach — natural hedging. When buying raw materials from China in dollars and selling finished products to Europe in euros, synchronizing payments so currency fluctuations partially offset each other becomes possible. This requires careful planning but doesn't need additional financial instruments.

Some fintech startups offer dynamic hedging through AI algorithms that analyze cash flows and automatically open hedging positions when risk exceeds certain thresholds. Verto, for example, integrated such functionality into its B2B platform and claims clients reduce currency losses by 40-60%.

Security Technique: Avoiding Money Loss Through Fraud

BEC (Business Email Compromise) attacks cost companies $43 billion in losses during 2016-2021, according to FBI data. The scheme is simple: a hacker gains access to a finance director's email, tracks correspondence with suppliers, then sends a fake letter with altered bank account details. Accounting transfers a million dollars, and the money disappears irretrievably.

Two-factor authentication, email encryption, mandatory phone calls to confirm changed details — basic things many companies still don't implement. Introducing even elementary protocols reduces risk by 90%.

Another attack vector — fake payment platforms. Scammers create sites imitating Wise, Payoneer, or crypto exchanges, buy Google ads, and unsuspecting users enter their data. Always verify URLs, use bookmarks for logging into financial services, never follow links from emails.

For large companies, using separate devices for financial operations became standard. A laptop used only for accessing bank clients and payment systems, without email, social networks, browsing. This might seem paranoid, but when millions are at stake, paranoia is justified.

Conclusions Without Fanfare

An effective payment system for international business isn't one tool but a thoughtful combination of several. Traditional banks remain the foundation for large sums and official transactions. Digital platforms meet needs for speed and convenience in the middle segment. Cryptocurrencies find application where traditional channels work poorly or aren't available at all.

The main thing — test different solutions with small amounts, study real experiences of other companies in the industry, build backup channels. Payment infrastructure must be flexible enough to adapt to changes in regulation, technology, and market conditions. The world doesn't wait for figuring out all details. Movement needs to happen now, but carefully and with understanding of possible risks.