World’s top 100 cross-border payment companies reveal industry’s changes and challenges

• Today, FXC Intelligence published The 2023 Cross-Border Payments 100. 
• Now in its fifth year, the market map is published annually to recognise and celebrate the biggest players in the cross border payments industry.
• Data on the top 100 over the past five years reveals key trends and insights across the industry’s female leadership, challengers and emerging markets.

Today, FXC Intelligence published The 2023 Cross-Border Payments 100, a market map of the key players in the cross-border payments space. Now in its fifth year, the map is widely recognised as the definitive benchmark of the biggest players in the industry.

Featuring companies across money transfers, payments processing, ecommerce, B2B and beyond, the map separates the top 100 players into seven groups: VC/growth equity backed, independently owned, banks, private equity backed, crypto and public companies. 

With five years of data now available, the map also provides insights into how the payments industry has changed over the last half decade. Here we’ve highlighted some of the biggest trends our analysis of five years of the cross-border payments 100 market map reveal:

Female CEOs

There are very few female CEOs. Out of 100 companies, only five are headed by a female, which although more than five years ago, reminds us that the industry needs to do more to ensure women reach leadership positions in the payments space. 

One of the biggest obstacles to improving the male/female split, is that change is very slow as new opportunities for payments CEOs do not come up often. In the companies covered in the top 100, many male CEOs have been in the role for 10+ years and many have been there since the company’s founding. People are also often promoted internally, limiting opportunities to diversify. 

In reflection to these findings, Lucy Ingham, Editor-in-Chief and Head of Content at FXC intelligence said:

“We’re seeing that more mature, established payment companies are taking on more women, with the CEOs of Natwest and FIS, who were both appointed in the last few years, being strong examples. However, women remain under-represented in the payments industry, particularly among startups and younger companies in this space. 

“Out of the three companies who are no longer in the top 100 due to closing, only one did so because it ran out of money – and this one was female led. While this is too small a sample size to draw concrete conclusions from, it does remind us that work needs to be done to ensure female-led startups are given the same opportunities as their male counterparts.”

Challengers 

The cross border payments space is now less dominated by challengers than in 2019. 

The graph below shows the founding year of companies featured in the top 100 over the last five years, which shows a contraction of younger companies in 2023, compared to 2019. 

There are several potential reasons for this. Firstly, we’ve seen a drop off of crypto companies included in the top 100 since 2019, reflecting the state of crisis crypto has been in throughout 2022 and into this year. In 2019 we counted 5 crypto companies as key players in the space, compared to 3 in 2023. 

Secondly, there has been consolidation in the market over the last few years, with many smaller companies being acquired by bigger players in the space. The number one reason for a company being taken off the list between years was that it had been acquired by a competitor – and companies in a position to make acquisitions are generally larger and more established than the smaller players they acquire. 

Emerging markets 

Looking back over the last 5 years, it is clear that emerging markets are taking up more share of the industry than ever before. 

Undeniably, North America continues to dominate the market share, with 40 companies founded on the continent and 43 companies operating out of the continent. This makes up over 40% of the total number of cross-border payment companies worldwide. 

However, in the five years since 2019, the geographical spread of companies in the top 100 is now more dispersed than ever before. Hot spots are now cropping up in parts of South America and Western Africa as demand for cross border payment service providers continues to evolve. 

Commenting ahead of the publication of the top 100, Daniel Webber, CEO and founder of FXC Intelligence said:  

“Every year we sit down to look at the over 15,000 companies we track and whittle them down to the key players with the biggest impact on the industry. It’s an extensive process, powered by FXC Intelligence’s expertise and unique insights. I can confidently say the companies in the top 100 are truly the cream of the crop. 

“The industry has seen significant maturation and consolidation over the last five years, and while change half a decade ago was coming from new players, today it is being led by emerging markets in regions such as Africa and Latin America.

“Despite some improvements, there remains a serious lack of women in senior leadership positions. Although progress has been made, it can be frustrating to observe how slow change can be. There is excellent female talent in the industry, but companies must be prepared to review areas such as hiring practices and workplace culture and make any necessary changes to ensure women looking to reach leadership positions can do so.”

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