Hampshire, UK - 9th March 2026: A new study by global tech strategist Juniper Research has ranked SWIFT as the leading cross-border payment infrastructure provider in 2026, followed by Visa, Thunes, and Mastercard.
Despite concerns that SWIFT’s supremacy is waning amid cryptocurrency-based alternatives, it continues to thrive; indicating that established players remain at the forefront for now.
An extract from the report, Cross-border Payments Market 2026-2030, is available as a free download.
As part of the study, Juniper Research released its 2026 Competitor Leaderboard. This analyses 14 leading providers of cross-border payment infrastructure; ranking them based on criteria including their payment processing value and breadth of supported cross-border use cases.
Source: Juniper Research
Report author Lorien Carter, Senior Research Analyst at Juniper Research, commented: “Some of the top-ranked providers benefit from long-established market dominance. However, the study found that sustained leadership increasingly depends on technological advancement. Vendors that fail to modernise core settlement rails risk losing market share to real-time, multi-rail infrastructure providers. Leading companies must integrate capabilities such as stablecoin-based settlement for international transfers and smart routing.”
Other high-ranking providers, such as Thunes and dLocal, have created novel payment networks that connect banks, mobile wallets, and diverse local payment methods. These networks transact in real time; meeting growing customer expectation for fast transactions. As real-time transactions become standard, competitive advantage will increasingly depend on ecosystem reach rather than transaction volume alone.
The study’s findings reflect the accelerating value of the cross-border payments market; forecast to reach $62.9 trillion by 2030. As transaction values climb 24% from $58.9 trillion in 2026, vendors are competing to capture a greater share of this expanding opportunity by differentiating on global connectivity and technological innovation.
The new market research suite offers the most comprehensive assessment of the cross-border payment infrastructure market to date; providing insightful market analysis and forecasts of 20,100 datapoints of countries over a four-year period. In addition to the Competitor Leaderboard, it includes detailed evaluation of current and future market opportunities.
About Juniper Research
Juniper Research is a global tech strategist firm providing research, data, and forecasting across the fintech, telecoms, and IoT sectors. For over 20 years, Juniper Research has delivered actionable insights that help industry leaders navigate disruption, seize opportunities, and make confident strategic decisions. www.juniperresearch.com
Press Contact
Sam Smith, Press Relations
sam.smith@juniperresearch.com
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