13 Nov 2025 Emanuela Saccarola from Citi on Cross Border Payments, Stablecoins, AI, and Skiing
episode
Off the Rails from the U.S. Faster Payments Council - FPC
30 min
2 speakers
4 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I am Reid Lutanen, CEO of the U.S. Faster Payments Council, and this is Off the Rails for the U.S. Faster Payments Council. Today's episode, I'll be joined by Emanuela Saccarola, who leads cross-border payments for Citi. Emanuela and I will be talking about the progress that's already been made, the things that we need to be working on, and emerging technologies that create opportunities, but also potentially pose threats. But first, the headlines. Believe it or not, FPC's 2026 Spring Member Meeting is only about three months away, and we're doing something new to make it an even more valuable experience for our members. This spring, we're partnering with ePay Resources to create joint programming and provide an incredible opportunity for our two membership groups to interact.
ePay Connect kicks off on Monday, February 23rd, and FPC members will receive a special discount on attendance. Then, beginning at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, February 25th, FPC and ePay attendees are all invited to joint sessions focused on the future of payments and workshops tailored specifically to financial institutions exploring Faster Payments implementations. Registration is open now, so head to fasterpaymentscouncil.org and click on News and Events, then FPC Events to find all that. We'll be coming at you a bit ahead of our normal schedule next week. The second episode of November featuring Keith Melton and Kyle Caldwell from The Clearing House will be going live next Thursday. So a rare back-to-back weeks where you have to hear me because there is something else going on that following Thursday.
I look forward to hearing Keith and me talk about the things we're thankful for in payments next week. But first, let's get to that discussion with Emanuela from Citi.
All right. We're joined by Emanuela Saccarola from Citi. Emanuela, thanks for joining us.
Thank you for having me, Reid.
All right. How about we start just kind of getting some background on you, your role at Citi, and then some perspective on Citi's role in the global payments ecosystem, because obviously you guys play an important part in all that.
Sure, thank you. So I'm the head of cross-border payments within services. Services is one of the five businesses we have at Citi. What does it mean to be the head of cross-border payments at Citi? I'm basically the business owner, which means I'm accountable for everything from business strategy to P&L, all product development, tech budget, and of course, everything in the risk and control and compliance space. As you said, it is important in the global payments ecosystem. We're a large bank, a large global bank. We're one of the largest movers of money globally. In fact, we move approximately $5 trillion a day. We are connected to 260, approximately 260 financial market infrastructure globally through our branch network.
And in fact, the cross-border payments business has somewhat been able to leverage that connectivity globally. And we delivered the last mile payments when it is delivered into an account through our branch networking network. 95% of our volume is processed through Citi. So I'm benefiting from that global network as well from a cross-border perspective. We are present in approximately 90 markets. And as you know, when you have a banking license in many of these markets, you actually have to connect to Eastern payment schemes. It's mandatory in many of those countries. So we're connected to approximately 60 Eastern payment schemes. In terms of volumes, we're processing more than 11 million Eastern payments a day.
So we've been very busy managing this global payments network and obviously linking it to cross-border payments, which is a little more complex because it goes across borders and there's a lot of elements to take into account when payments move across geographies and currencies.
That's great. And some of those numbers in there are a good segue because we're going to spend a fair amount of our time together today talking about the things that need doing. I think we always focus on what is out there that we need to go get.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:28–15:44
2
Who is Emanuela Saccarola and what is her role leading cross-border payments at Citi?
15:44–17:25
3
How extensive is Citi's global payments network and what volumes does it move daily?
17:25–28:06
4
How has the user experience for cross-border payments changed compared to a few years ago?
28:06–29:58
Speakers
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