Fintechs forecast to become SMEs' top cross-border payment choice

Fintech companies are forecast to become the main cross-border payment provider for more small and medium-sized enterprises than banks by 2028, according to research Mastercard published on 23 September 2026. The finding comes from a survey of 1,028 payment decision-makers at SMEs and mid-market firms, carried out with Bain & Company. It matters to any UK business that pays suppliers abroad or gets paid by overseas customers, because it points to a reshuffling of who SMEs trust to move their money.

The crucial detail is scope. This is not a UK-only study. The 1,028 respondents were spread across 11 markets — Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Türkiye, the UK and the US — and the 2028 forecast is a pooled figure across all of them. Mastercard has not published a UK-only breakdown of the headline numbers. The one clearly UK-specific result concerns pricing, not provider choice, and is set out below.

What the research measured

Mastercard's "Money in Motion" research asked payment decision-makers at SMEs and mid-market firms how they currently handle cross-border payments, which providers they use, and what would make them switch. The press release and the accompanying research page are the two public sources for the findings, and between them they leave some methodological questions unanswered. Neither discloses the number of UK respondents, the sampling quotas, the fieldwork dates, how the data was weighted, or the margin of error. It is also unclear whether the 2028 figures reflect respondents' own stated expectations, a model built by Bain & Company, or some other projection method. Readers should treat the 2028 numbers as a forecast derived from a survey, not as a measurement of what has already happened.

The projected shift from banks to fintechs

The pooled data show a clear direction of travel in stated preference. Mastercard reports that 30% of surveyed firms named a fintech as their main cross-border payment provider in 2025, and that this is forecast to rise to 48% by 2028. Banks move the other way, from 42% in 2025 to a forecast 28% in 2028.

These figures describe stated main-provider preference among the pooled 11-market sample, not measured payment volume, transaction value or revenue market share. The two categories also do not account for the full sample: fintechs and banks together make up 72% of responses in 2025 and 76% in 2028, so a meaningful share of firms named some other type of provider or gave another answer. On the published material, there is no independent dataset confirming that fintechs are on course to process more UK SME payment value than banks by 2028 — the claim that can be supported is about provider choice as reported in this survey, not about market share.

Why SMEs say they might move

Mastercard's pooled results point to trust, speed and reliable settlement as the main forces behind any switch. Across the full sample, 35% cited trust and reputation as a leading purchasing criterion, 34% cited speed, and cost and transparency were each cited by 28%. Separately, Mastercard reports that 91% of internationally trading SMEs surveyed are set to switch their current cross-border payment provider within two years. That figure describes stated intention captured in a survey, not confirmed future behaviour — a business telling a researcher it expects to switch is not the same as it doing so.

Among respondents who said they had already changed provider recently, 67% pointed to faster transactions and more reliable settlement as their reason for switching. Mastercard's published material does not indicate how this compares with other possible reasons, or whether price played a role for the same respondents.

The UK signal: pricing, not provider share

The one finding specifically broken out for the UK concerns pricing clarity rather than fintech-versus-bank preference. Mastercard reports that 45% of UK respondents said clear pricing would make them more likely to choose or remain with a provider, against 38% across the pooled 11-market sample. That is a real difference, but it is a single data point on one question, drawn from an undisclosed UK subsample size, with no published confidence interval. It should not be read as evidence that UK SMEs as a whole will move to fintechs faster, or slower, than businesses elsewhere.

Why one provider rarely wins everything

Mastercard's press release says 92% of surveyed firms already use multiple cross-border payment providers. Its separate research page gives a more granular figure: about 85% use between two and four providers, and fewer than 8% use only one. The two statements are not necessarily in conflict — "multiple" in the press release could include firms using more than four — but Mastercard's public material does not reconcile the two figures explicitly, so both should be treated as approximate.

For a UK SME, this pattern reflects a practical reality: currency coverage, country reach, pricing, and resilience against a single provider's outage or failure often differ by provider, which is a reason many businesses keep more than one relationship rather than consolidate everything with a single bank or fintech.

Beyond the transfer: tracking, fraud and visibility

The pooled survey found demand for features beyond the basic transfer. Payment tracking was the most sought-after value-added service, named by 43% of respondents, followed by fraud detection at 42%. Separately, Mastercard's research page reports that 90% of respondents rated real-time visibility and predictability of funds as important, and says this assessment has stayed stable over the preceding three years. For a UK finance team, this points to reconciliation data, fraud controls and status tracking as practical features to weigh alongside price and speed when assessing a provider — though no UK-only figures are published for these specific questions.

UK regulatory context: checking who you are actually dealing with

None of this changes the regulatory position for a UK business using a non-bank payment provider. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) requires non-bank payment service providers to be authorised or registered, and advises users to check the Financial Services Register to confirm the legal entity behind a customer-facing brand and the permissions it holds — the FCA notes that the brand a business deals with may not be the same as the regulated entity.

A separate point matters for risk: money held with an authorised payment institution or electronic money institution is not directly protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the way a bank deposit is. Instead, these firms are generally required to safeguard customer funds, a different mechanism that does not guarantee immediate or full repayment if the firm fails — the FCA notes that insolvency practitioner or liquidator costs may be deducted and that repayment can take time. Small payment institutions are not required to safeguard funds unless they choose to opt in. The FCA's supplementary safeguarding regime for payment and e-money firms, set out in Policy Statement PS25/12, came into force on 7 May 2026, strengthening record-keeping, reporting and monitoring requirements for firms in scope. Under the regime, a firm may be exempt from the associated audit requirement if it has not been required to safeguard more than £100,000 at any point for at least 53 weeks.

The FCA frames this safeguarding-versus-FSCS distinction as a relevant factor when comparing bank and non-bank providers, separate from considerations such as speed and pricing.

What the evidence cannot show

Mastercard's research is commissioned and published by a company that sells cross-border payment infrastructure, through Mastercard Move, to banks and fintechs alike — a commercial interest worth noting, though it does not by itself invalidate the survey findings. Beyond that, the public material does not disclose a UK-only breakdown of the 48% fintech or 28% bank forecasts, does not explain how the 2028 figures were modelled, and does not identify the source or method behind Mastercard's separate projection that the global business-to-business cross-border payments market will grow by 51%, from US$31.7tn in 2024 to US$47.8tn in 2032. That figure describes a global market, not a UK one, and should be read as a Mastercard-issued projection rather than an official statistic.

What to watch next

The clearest test of this forecast will be UK-specific adoption data as it emerges, rather than the pooled 11-market figures published so far. The FCA's guidance on using payment service providers (opens in a new tab) sets out how to verify a provider's regulated status on the Financial Services Register. Questions that a comparison between providers might address include how each handles safeguarding, total foreign-exchange cost, delivery times and payment tracking — none of which this survey, on its own, settles.