
Press Releases

Valletta, Malta — September 2026 — The G20's target of bringing cross-border payment costs to 3% by 2027 will not be met, and with no legal cap on what providers may charge, COLIBRIX ONE argues the contest for merchants is shifting from headline rates to what happens after go-live: round-the-clock access to a named human, a dedicated manager and support across the full breadth of a merchant's payment needs.
Regulators set a target, under the G20 roadmap tracked by the Financial Stability Board, of bringing the cost of cross-border payments to 3% or below by 2027. On current evidence that target will be missed, and Europe is no exception. Sending money internationally still costs 6.36% of the amount transferred on average, ranging from 5.11% in the cheapest region to 8.46% in the most expensive, according to the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide.
In the same Q3 2025 data, not one major European sending market comes close to the target:
So even the cheapest sits roughly half again above 3%. The FSB has itself conceded that the 2027 goal is unlikely to be met.
That 3% figure is not a legal ceiling: regulators track and encourage lower cross-border costs but they do not cap what a provider may charge. So pricing stays a competitive variable rather than a fixed rule.
As headline rates converge across the market, the real differentiation moves to everything that happens after a merchant is onboarded: how quickly an exception is resolved, whether a named person is leading the account when problems arise and how much operating complexity the provider absorbs on the merchant's behalf.
COLIBRIX ONE has built its model around support that starts after go-live as the core of the relationship rather than an afterthought. Every merchant works with a dedicated manager who is reachable around the clock, so a payment issue in any timezone reaches a named person who already knows the account rather than an anonymous queue.
"Our support is staffed by people, not scripts, and it is built for the cases automated systems handle least well," says Olya Oleh, Head of Partnership and Business Development at COLIBRIX ONE. "It responds quickly and stays reachable at the weekend, when a stalled payment cannot wait until Monday."
Behind that support sits the full payment infrastructure, so the help is not limited to answering questions:
As the 2027 deadline nears, the advantage is moving to providers that stay useful long after go-live, turning support that once lived in a queue into a capability every merchant can reach.
Aleksandra Kitina, CMO, COLIBRIX ONE alk@colibrix.one
COLIBRIX ONE is a payments infrastructure platform providing merchant acquiring, e-money accounts/payment accounts with dedicated named IBANs and SEPA/Swift access for digital businesses, and virtual cards with proprietary BIN numbers for media buying and affiliate agencies operating across global markets.
COLIBRIX ONE is a trading name used by the companies Colibrix Limited, Mellifera Kartiera Limited and Mellifera Operations Limited. Products and services are provided by the relevant company in accordance with its applicable jurisdiction and regulatory permissions.
Mellifera Kartiera Limited is an MFSA-authorised EMI (ref. C107685). Colibrix Limited is authorised by the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an Authorised Electronic Money Institution (Firm Reference Number 927920).