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Global finance is shedding its borders. Real-time payment networks and digital currencies are giving individuals, businesses, and emerging markets unprecedented speed, choice, and control—forcing traditional institutions to either adapt or watch influence slip away in the rise of the stateless economy. Ïma Essien, MBA student at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley shares how organizations can navigate and shape this transformation.
While Western banks pilot Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) frameworks, trillions in instant payments already flow through systems designed in Mumbai, São Paulo, and Dubai, with cross-border links scaling fast. The stateless economy has arrived. The question is whether your organization will help shape it or be shaped by it.
The transformation is visible in daily operations. India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) processes over eighteen billion transactions monthly – the largest real-time payment system by volume. Brazil’s Pix reaches most adults and moves multi-trillion-dollar annual volumes. When Singapore connected to UPI, 19 Indian banks went live to move money in seconds along a route that once took days and carried multi-percentage-point fees. Bank channels for small remittances still price near 12 percent, well above the UN’s 3 percent target, while transfers between Singapore and India now settle in seconds at materially lower prices through the UPI-PayNow linkage.
The contest for cross-border payments is coalescing around two approaches that reflect different assumptions about power and inclusion in a multipolar world. The first, wholesale CBDC and tokenized-deposit platforms such as mBridge and Project Agorá, aim for near-instant settlement and synchronized payment-versus-payment (PvP) foreign exchange where liquidity exists. These ecosystems enable policy-driven compliance controls and richer supervisory data, but they also favor well-capitalized institutions, concentrating standard-setting in central banks and curated participants. The main constraints today include thin non-USD FX liquidity and price discovery, plus unclear cross-border data access, and rule-setting.
The second approach, instant payment linkages such as UPI-PayNow, Buna-Raast, and the BIS Nexus cohort, connects existing domestic systems that already serve large user bases. Here, power and enforcement remain domestic, which speeds adoption and widens access. The trade-off is coordination: data sharing, consumer protection, and dispute resolution must be aligned across borders, so that failures are rare and resolvable. As these rails normalize, cross-border labor markets and small-firm participation expand, increasing bargaining power on prices, wages, and data rights. A durable strategy keeps options open: use instant links where speed matters most, and wholesale platforms where settlement reduces risk for large flows. The goal is to build capabilities across both rails and ensure savings reach end users.
For your organization, the first strategic imperative is to choose your corridors. Value accrues first in corridors with volume, price friction, and credible implementation partners. The Gulf–Pakistan route through Buna-Raast can formalize billions in remittances and push costs toward 3 percent if banks and on- and off-ramps pass through savings. The Singapore–India link has already collapsed settlement times, and merchant acceptance for UPI in Singapore is increasing, which expands utility for travelers, workers, and students. Early pilots in these lanes influence technical standards, service-level expectations, and partnership terms; late adopters accept rules written by others.
From there, institutions need not rebuild payments from first principles. The decision is build, buy, or partner. The build path offers maximum control for instant-link connectivity or tokenization pilots but requires engineering depth and regulatory coordination. Buying established connectivity through vendors accelerates deployment while limiting differentiation. Partnering with existing networks like UPI, Pix, Buna, or Nexus provides immediate scale and shared operating costs. The goal is to prioritize speed to market and clean integration with risk and compliance.
In this multipolar financial system, influence flows to those who help write the rules. Regional coalitions writing technical specifications control future market access. This makes regulatory sandboxes and industry consortia the places where rulebooks are written. The practical choice is participation versus leadership. A hybrid approach works best: lead where you have leverage, participate broadly elsewhere, and prioritize governance that reduces friction and clarifies liability and data rights.
The move toward stateless economics redistributes power as well as payment flows. When money moves over domestic instant rails, sanctions enforcement and consumer protection remain local. Direct local-currency settlement through instant-payment links can–depending on FX arrangements and liquidity–reduce reliance on USD-routed correspondent chains and shift monetary leverage from traditional financial centers to regional payment hubs. Compliance-arbitrage risks can emerge as bad actors exploit jurisdictional gaps, while legitimate businesses face complex multi-regime requirements. When wholesale platforms mature, cross-border settlement risk falls, and supervisory visibility increase but access and data governance become central questions. The organizations that succeed will navigate both systems strategically: instant links for retail and SME flows, and selective CBDC or tokenized-deposit participation for wholesale applications where synchronized settlement provides real value.
The domestic worker in Dubai sending rupees to Lahore, the Brazilian exporter using PIX for working-capital flows, the Indian entrepreneur paying with UPI in Singapore, and the Pakistani diaspora moving savings through Buna-Raast are not waiting for traditional institutions to catch up. Leaders who act in the next 12 to 18 months will help write the standards for the next decade. The stateless economy is already in motion. Organizations that build capabilities across both architectures and secure influence in emerging standards will lead this transition. Success requires combining technical expertise with geopolitical intelligence to shape rather than accept the rules of tomorrow’s financial system.
Ïma Essien is part of the BGG Young Voices Cohort of 2025. She is an MBA candidate at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and General Partner at Courtyard Ventures, where she leads early-stageinvestments and fund operations. She has worked with the United Nations in South Africa, Google, and U.S. healthcare networks, and now advises leaders navigating transitions across global health, finance, and development. Her work spans Africa, Asia, LATAM, and the U.S., with a focus on women’s health, impact finance, and social innovation.
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