Make money doing the work you believe in
One thing that stood out to me from my conversation with David Messenger . from PingPong Payments was this:
Cross-border payments are not expensive because moving money is technically difficult anymore.
They are expensive because trust is expensive.
Compliance, AML checks, KYB, treasury management, FX exposure, local regulations, banking partnerships, liquidity management, transaction monitoring. Most of the complexity sits around the payment, not inside the payment itself.
What also became clear is that the next phase of global payments may not be banks versus fintechs.
It may be banks and fintechs building together.
Banks still provide trust, balance sheets, and lending relationships. Fintechs provide agility, APIs, customization, and global orchestration.
The interesting part is watching those layers increasingly merge together.
Full episode with David Messenger is now live.