Breaking barriers in cross-border payments: Redefining financial access in emerging markets

Cross-border payments move trillions of dollars every year, yet in many emerging markets they remain slow, expensive, and inefficient.

In his IENYC capstone, Gilles Andrea Raynaud investigates how corridor-specific, compliance-first financial infrastructure can reduce friction, using Bolivia as a real-world case study. The result is a rigorously designed operational model grounded in regulatory analysis, risk assessment, and measurable social impact.

The research question

At its core, the capstone asks:

How can technology-enabled FX and payment infrastructure reduce cost and settlement friction in emerging markets while remaining institutionally compliant and commercially viable?

Rather than assuming inefficiency is purely technical, Gilles approached the problem as a systems challenge shaped by regulation, liquidity constraints, correspondent banking limitations, and fragmented compliance processes.

Why Bolivia

Latin America presents one of the most complex cross-border payment environments globally. Challenges include:

Bolivia offered a high-friction corridor for testing infrastructure models. Focusing on a specific market enabled granular regulatory mapping, stakeholder analysis, and risk modeling tailored to real operating conditions.

Methodology from market mapping to model design

The capstone unfolded in four structured phases:

1. Market pain-point analysis

Primary research with businesses and organizations identified institutional bottlenecks as the dominant cost drivers.

2. Regulatory and compliance feasibility

A detailed review of regulations, capital controls, AML frameworks, and licensing requirements shaped the infrastructure design. Compliance was treated as a design principle, not a constraint.

3. Risk-adjusted operating model

The project developed a conservative, liquidity-aware model incorporating:

• Counterparty risk analysis
• Settlement risk mitigation
• Currency exposure management
• Banking relationship constraints

This framework prioritized resilience over speed-to-scale.

4. Commercial and impact assessment

The research evaluated settlement time compression, transaction cost optimization, scalability across corridors, and measurable social externalities such as SME enablement and NGO efficiency.

Key findings

The research surfaced several critical insights:

1. Payment inefficiencies are institutional rather than purely technical.
2. Corridor-specific infrastructure outperforms generic platforms, reducing spreads and settlement times.
3. Compliance-first design builds long-term viability, enhancing scalability and reducing systemic fragility.
4. Academic research can directly inform venture execution, as demonstrated by KIBO, an IE-born FX and payments infrastructure launched in September 2024.

Systems thinking in action

Gilles credits IENYC’s interdisciplinary approach:

“Cross-border payments sit at the intersection of finance, regulation, geopolitics, liquidity management, and social outcomes. Systems thinking allowed me to model these interactions rather than isolate them.”

Key skills applied included impact measurement, financial modeling, risk management, stakeholder mapping, and institutional governance analysis. Iterative model design and regulatory recalibrations were central to reaching a viable solution.

From capstone to scalable infrastructure

The project evolved into a practical framework for building compliant, inclusive financial infrastructure. If scaled, it could improve transaction efficiency for:

Three words

Challenging. Grounded. Transformative.

Challenging in regulatory and liquidity complexity, grounded in conservative modeling and primary research, transformative in reshaping impact-driven financial innovation.

Gilles Raynaud’s capstone embodies IENYC’s mission: bridging global ambition and local action, turning bold research into extraordinary, actionable progress.

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