Global businesses face a growing ‘volatility gap’ as payment innovation outpaces currency risk management
Convera, a global leader in commercial payments, today launched a new global report warning that global businesses are facing a growing ‘volatility gap’: the widening distance between how efficiently money moves across borders and how effectively companies manage the impact of currency movements on margins, forecasts and cash flow.
The report, The Volatility Gap: Why Payments Innovation Doesn’t Solve Currency Risk, finds that despite a decade of progress in cross-border payments, including real-time settlement rails, stablecoins and the rollout of the ISO 20022 messaging standard, currency risk has been left largely unaddressed. Global foreign-exchange turnover reached $9.5 trillion a day in April 2025, up 27% from 2022, according to the Bank for International Settlements, as businesses increased their use of FX markets to manage exposure amid heightened volatility.
The bigger picture for businesses
- 44% of importers and exporters report that currency movements have eroded their profit margins, with global conflict overtaking tariffs, inflation and interest rates as their top economic concern, according to Bibby Financial Services’ 2026 International Trade Report.
- Up to 75% of payments on the Swift network now reach the beneficiary’s bank within 10 minutes, but a real-time payment is still priced at whatever rate applies at the moment it’s sent, leaving businesses exposed to rate movements between one payment cycle and the next.
- Stablecoin market capitalisation surged past $300 billion in 2026, but stablecoins settle payments faster without changing the underlying value relationship between the currencies involved.
- The B2B cross-border payments market is projected to reach $51.2 trillion by 2033, according to FXC Intelligence, a scale that will multiply the number of currency corridors businesses must manage as they diversify into new markets.
A shift from payments efficiency to currency resilience
Convera’s report argues that closing the volatility gap requires businesses to move beyond payment efficiency alone and treat payments, FX and risk management as one integrated discipline. In practice, this means matching the timing of hedging strategies to actual payment dates, building a currency risk framework suited to a business’s specific exposure, and embedding FX decisions directly into everyday payment workflows rather than treating them as an afterthought.
“A faster payment is not necessarily a safer commercial outcome. A business can move money in seconds and still lose margin because the currency exposure was unmanaged for weeks or months beforehand. Businesses have made huge progress modernising payment infrastructure, but many are still managing currency exposure as an afterthought. That leaves margins, forecasts and growth plans exposed at exactly the moment finance leaders need more certainty,” said Patrick Gauthier, group CEO at Convera.
The report is designed for CFOs, treasurers and senior finance leaders at businesses operating internationally, particularly those expanding into new markets, managing recurring supplier or customer payments, or seeking greater visibility over margins and cashflow. It is available now at https://convera.com/lp/the-volatility-gap/