Luxembourg’s Banking Circle eyes growth in Apac’s US$24 trillion cross-border payments opportunity

Up until over a decade ago, cross-border payment innovations had largely flowed from the West to the East. 

Today, Asia-Pacific leads the space, said Luxembourg-based Banking Circle’s head of Sales and Account Management for Asia, Cindy Liu.

More APAC payments firms are taking their capabilities abroad, she added, including Australia-founded Airwallex committing US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) to expand in Europe, the Middle East and Africa by 2030, and Singapore-based Thunes opening a third US office in New York in June 2026. 

Banking Circle, a business-to-business (B2B) bank, serves as the back-end payment infrastructure, Liu said. It aims to do the same for other APAC companies going global. 

The opportunity is significant. APAC’s outbound cross-border payments could nearly double from 2024 levels to US$23.8 trillion by 2032, according to a 2025 analysis from data provider FXC Intelligence.

Founded in 2013, Banking Circle provides back-end financial infrastructure to help companies move funds globally. 

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It provides clearing connections, multi-currency accounts and virtual international bank account numbers (unique references used to route and track payments), allowing its clients to build payments into their products without juggling multiple banks, payment networks and technology providers, Liu added. 

Banking Circle counts nearly 900 clients – payment service providers, marketplaces, and financial institutions – and processes over €1.5 trillion (S$2.1 trillion) payments annually. 

It is supervised by Luxembourg regulator Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier.

Growing with APAC

Handling Asia’s patchwork of currencies, regulatory regimes, and banking systems early on has helped APAC payments firms prepare for global expansion, Liu said. 

Liu explained: “It has required them to build for flexibility and localisation – capabilities that become increasingly valuable as they expand into EMEA.”

Banking Circle is looking to deepen its regional presence with a Hong Kong licence, Liu said.

Its Singapore subsidiary, BC Payments, obtained a Major Payment Institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in November 2025. 

The Singapore unit serves as Banking Circle’s APAC hub and has over 60 staff.

Last year, Banking Circle also acquired Australian Settlements Limited, an authorised deposit-taking institution providing settlement and processing services to banks and payment companies in Australia. 

She believes trade-related business will likely remain the main driver of cross-border APAC payments growth in the next decade, both within the region and to the rest of the world. 

That growth will run through infrastructure many will never see – absorbing the regulatory complexity so money arrives on time, in the right currency, in the right account, Liu said.

This was produced in partnership with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Global Finance & Technology Network.

For more stories, go to bt.sg/sff26