Trust at the Core: Rethinking compliance in a borderless payments world

In today’s fast-moving digital payments landscape, billions of cross-border transactions take place daily. At this scale and speed, trust has become the most valuable currency. Customers trust that their payments will be delivered securely, regulators trust that businesses comply with ever evolving rules, and partners trust that systems will integrate smoothly. 

In this environment, compliance is the foundation for trust across the entire payments ecosystem, and not just about following the rules.

The evolving compliance landscape

As digital payments gain traction worldwide, regulatory expectations are becoming more stringent and complex.

Payment providers must navigate an increasingly intricate web of regulations – ranging from the European Union’s regulations on wire transfers and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) to more widely applicable frameworks such as the EU’s Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), the UK’s Electronic Money Regulations (EMRs) and Payment Services Regulations (PSRs), and the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Payment Services Act (PSA).

Adding to the challenge, regulatory requirements often vary significantly across jurisdictions. This fragmentation creates operational hurdles for companies with cross-border operations, requiring substantial resources, specialised expertise, and advanced technological solutions to ensure compliance across borders. 

The rise of near real-time transactions, now the norm for consumers, raises the bar even further. Compliance systems must be capable of identifying and mitigating risks almost instantly. 

At the same time, digital transformation and financial inclusion initiatives have also extended the reach of digital payments into previously underserved or unbanked markets. While these developments open up significant growth opportunities, they also introduce new risks and regulatory complexities, especially in markets with varying levels of regulatory maturity and enforcement. 

Beyond checkboxes: Rethinking compliance in digital payments

Traditionally, compliance has been viewed as a manual, reactive and fragmented process, often managed by isolated teams within regional or departmental silos. These legacy systems relied heavily on paperwork, manual reviews, and disconnected technology stacks, making them inefficient, slow, and prone to human error. In today’s high-volume, high-velocity payment environment, such approaches are no longer sustainable. 

This outdated model often leads to high operational costs, delays in onboarding new customers or markets, and an increased risk of compliance failures. The consequences can be severe: financial penalties, reputational damage, and erosion of customer trust. Moreover, traditional compliance frameworks struggle to keep pace with evolving regulations and emerging financial crime threats. 

The modern digital payments ecosystem demands a new approach – one that is proactive, programmable, and seamlessly integrated into the payments infrastructure. Compliance must shift from being a reactive function that addresses risks after they occur in real-time, to an embedded capability that supports every transaction from start to finish.

To meet today’s complex demands, Thunes leverages its proprietary Fortress Compliance Platform – a unified embedded compliance infrastructure designed specifically for the challenges of global digital payments. The Fortress Compliance Platform provides real-time compliance checks and continuous risk management, streamlining processes, while enabling seamless integration into global payment networks.

Thunes’ Fortress Compliance Platform: Embedded protection and a competitive advantage

The Fortress Compliance Platform is purpose-built to meet the demands of modern compliance in global digital payments:

• Dynamic risk scoring: Instantly adapts to transaction contexts, continuously assessing risk based on multiple data points and behavioural analytics.
• Forecasting: AI-powered forecasting models analyse and predict currency flows, helping to optimise liquidity and inform real-time operational decisions.
• Smart screening: Performs real-time scans against international sanctions lists, politically exposed persons (PEPs) databases watchlists to proactively block high-risk transactions. 
• Transaction monitoring: Monitors transaction flows continuously to detect and flag anomalies or suspicious activity in real time. 
• Global regulatory coverage: Supported by more than 50 regulatory licences worldwide, including from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, Singapore’s Monetary Authority of Singapore, France’s Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution and licences to operate in all 50 US states.
• Advanced security measures: Certified under ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS, and uses tokenization and encryption to protect both transaction and customer data.

Real-world use cases demonstrate Fortress Compliance Platform in action: 

• Scaling with control: A fintech expanding into high-growth corridors benefits from Thunes’ embedded transaction monitoring and screening capabilities, helping ensure secure, compliant payouts across borders while maintaining their own onboarding and KYC processes.
• Secure wallet payouts: A mobile wallet provider offers cross-border top-ups with confidence, supported by Thunes’ infrastructure that screens transactions in real time and applies jurisdiction-specific controls across wallet corridors.
• Operational assurance for global banks: A bank routing international payments via Thunes benefits from real-time anomaly detection, sanctions screening and risk-scored transactions, all managed within the transaction flow, reducing exposure without the need to build additional layers of compliance infrastructure.

These capabilities provide a strong competitive edge, enabling faster market expansion, greater operational efficiency, lower compliance costs and an improved customer experience. Together, they form the foundation for sustainable growth and global leadership in digital payments.

The future of compliance in payments

Looking ahead, the compliance landscape in digital payments will continue to evolve, driven by rapid technological advancements, increased regulatory scrutiny and rising consumer expectations. Future compliance systems will increasingly utilise artificial intelligence, machine learning, and real-time analytics to improve decision-making, detect financial threats proactively, and deliver compliance with greater speed and accuracy. 

These solutions will become more deeply embedded into the payments infrastructure, capable of adapting seamlessly to regulatory changes without disrupting customer experiences or transaction flows. Global efforts toward regulatory standardisation, paired with the flexibility to accommodate local requirements, will become critical. 

Organisations that proactively invest in intelligent, integrated compliance platforms today will be  well-positioned to achieve sustainable growth, reduce operational risk, and strengthen customer trust – key factors for success in an increasingly competitive digital payments ecosystem. 

Building on compliance

In today’s global digital payments ecosystem, the reliability of compliance is directly tied to transaction security, operational integrity and customer confidence. At Thunes, compliance is a foundational infrastructure that enables seamless and secure international payments.

Our Fortress Compliance Platform reflects this commitment by embedding compliance directly into every stage of the payment transaction lifecycle. By transforming compliance from a regulatory obligation into a strategic asset, Thunes is building lasting trust, accelerating market expansion, and setting new industry benchmarks.

As the payments landscape continues to evolve, Thunes is committed to leading compliance innovation, protecting today’s transactions and preparing for tomorrow’s challenges. Trusted by global brands like PayPal, Circle, Uber, and Grab, our Fortress Compliance Platform empowers partners and customers to navigate global payment complexities with confidence, ensuring secure transactions and sustainable growth, now and into the future. 

Ready to simplify compliance and scale globally? Contact us to learn how our Fortress Compliance Platform powers secure, seamless global payments.