For banks and payment providers, the headline numbers surrounding cross-border payments appear encouraging.
The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Cross-Border Opportunity: What Global Sourcing by US SMBs Means for Payment Providers,” a collaboration with Mastercard, found that 57% of small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the United States sourced from international suppliers in 2025. Among firms generating $1 million to $10 million annually, nearly three-quarters now buy across borders.
That trend has generally been viewed as a growth tailwind. More suppliers mean more transactions, more foreign exchange activity and more payments volume.
But additional findings showed that there are signals that churn must be addressed.
More than one-quarter of internationally active SMBs said they are highly likely to switch providers. These businesses are not casual users of cross-border services. They are among the most internationally engaged companies in the SMB segment. Their willingness to leave suggests a broader shift in how SMBs evaluate financial partners, and by extension how providers may need to shift the lenses through which they approach those relationships.
Historically, providers won business relationships through account ownership. Today, they increasingly retain those relationships through execution.
Cross-Border Payments Expose Operational Weaknesses
The report identified faster payment processing and settlement as the most commonly cited improvement area among internationally active SMBs. It would be easy to interpret that finding as a demand for speed. However, the broader issue is operational reliability.
Cross-border payments touch inventory management, supplier relationships, production schedules and cash flow. Delays can ripple through an entire business operation. A domestic payment that arrives a day late may be an inconvenience. An international payment that arrives late can delay a shipment, disrupt a production run or strain a supplier relationship.
As SMBs become more dependent on overseas suppliers, payment performance becomes more visible. Problems that were once tolerated become more costly. In that sense, cross-border payments increasingly function as a stress test for the entire provider relationship.
The Dollar Is Masking Unmet Demand
Nearly two-thirds of internationally active SMBs pay overseas suppliers primarily in U.S. dollars. At first glance, that suggests satisfaction with the status quo. But read another way, businesses already operating across multiple currencies are more likely to want broader currency coverage and support for local payment methods.
Many SMBs are not choosing dollar-based payments because they are optimal. They are choosing them because they are available.
As businesses deepen international relationships, they begin encountering local market realities, supplier preferences and settlement requirements that a dollar-only model does not address.
The risk for providers is assuming current behavior reflects future demand.
The more experienced SMBs become in cross-border commerce, the more likely they appear to be seeking capabilities that extend beyond basic international money movement.
Incumbency Is No Sure Bet
The report’s most consequential finding concerned provider competition.
Traditional banks remain the dominant channel, serving 64% of internationally active SMBs.
Yet the same research found that FinTech providers are gaining share while earning some of the strongest satisfaction ratings in the market. The report concluded that performance is increasingly displacing incumbency as the basis for provider relationships.
Cross-border payments have traditionally been a sticky business. Companies tended to remain with the institution that handled their operating accounts because changing providers created disruption.
The churn data suggests that the calculation may be changing. Cross-border payments are no longer a retention moat. They are becoming a competitive battleground.
The implication is not that banks are losing the market. The data does not support that conclusion. The implication is that cross-border payments are becoming one of the clearest measures of whether providers are delivering enough value to justify staying.
