JP Morgan’s EMEA Payments, industry and advocacy lead, Katja Lehr observed that while the bank processes about $10 trillion a day across roughly 60 million transactions in 170 countries, connecting infrastructure alone is not enough, and public-private cooperation will be essential to meet the G20’s 2027 target for faster, cheaper, more transparent and more accessible cross-border payments. Combining internal capabilities with industry initiatives Lehr said JP Morgan has “for the longest time” implemented cross-border payments by “connecting infrastructure” behind the scenes. But she cautioned that there are “limits to what you can do when you just stick infrastructure together.” The bank is therefore combining proprietary work with market-wide initiatives such as Swift’s shared digital ledger initiative, Euro Banking Association (EBA) Clearing’s OCT project that develops and deploys a pan-European infrastructure for One-Leg-Out Instant Credit Transfers (OCT Inst), and the G20 cross-border roadmap, where Lehr herself has chaired a task force. The goal, she said, is “to smooth cross-border payments” through a mix of in-house innovation and collective standards. ISO 20022 as the common language Lehr called ISO 20022 “the language we are all using to understand each other”. JP Morgan has been using ISO 20022 “for a long time” and is now “the largest sender of MX messages.” She argued that while ISO 20022 is a major topic at Sibos, the November migration deadline is not the end - “we are not done”, and more standards work will follow. By fully adopting structured data, banks can automate reconciliation and risk checks, which in turn shortens settlement time and improves transparency. Real-time payments and Kinexys Asked about real-time payments, Lehr said JP Morgan “has been using real-time payments for a long time” wherever they are available and “to make them available to our clients as well.” She highlighted the bank’s decade-long investment in blockchain technology, including its Kinexys business unit (an evolution of the former JPM Coin initiative), which provides blockchain deposit accounts and tokenised deposits for wholesale clients. She distinguished between tokenised deposits and stablecoins: tokenised deposits are backed by bank money and offer “different safety and security” than stablecoins, which are subject to varying rules depending on jurisdiction. Stablecoins may be better suited to retail use cases, she suggested, while tokenised deposits fit business needs such as programmability and atomic settlement. Linking instant payment systems globally Lehr described one of the biggest challenges as linking disparate domestic instant payment systems into a seamless global network. Under the G20 initiative she chaired a task force that assessed 50 real-time payment systems and found “less than half of them are actually set up for cross-border usage.” Achieving instant cross-border payments will therefore “need a lot of investment in the local system” as well as harmonised rules, liquidity management and oversight frameworks. She stressed that “this goes beyond just the technology” — public authorities must come to the table. Of the 10 recommendations produced by her task force, nine required input from regulators. Without consistent rules and reciprocity (for example between the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) regime and the US “Genius Act”), innovations such as stablecoins or tokenised deposits cannot easily move across borders. Working with SWIFT on shared ledgers Lehr praised Swift as a “one of a kind” infrastructure owned by its members. JP Morgan continues to work with it on new initiatives, including the recently announced initiative to build a shared digital ledger for the industry and develop new retail payment schemes. She believes such efforts can help reduce fragmentation and segregated liquidity pools if implemented with strong governance. Building the foundations for instant cross-border payments Lehr’s remarks show JP Morgan using its scale and experience to drive both internal and industry solutions for cross-border payments. By combining ISO 20022, real-time payment connectivity, blockchain-based Kinexys rails and active participation in Swift and G20 initiatives, the bank is tackling speed, transparency and cost from multiple angles rather than relying on any single technology. At the same time, she highlighted that technology alone will not deliver true global instant payments. Regulatory alignment, oversight frameworks and public-private collaboration are just as critical. Stablecoins, tokenised deposits and shared ledgers may each play a role, but reaching the 2027 G20 goal will depend on infrastructure investment and policy convergence as much as innovation. JP Morgan’s advocacy and participation in industry bodies positions it to influence and implement these changes as they unfold.
