What is Cross-Border Payment? | Payments Glossary

A Cross-Border Payment is any transaction where the acquiring bank (merchant side) and the issuing bank (cardholder side) are located in different countries.

Cross-border transactions incur additional scheme fees (cross-border assessment fees) and typically involve currency conversion through either Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) at the point of sale or Multi-Currency Pricing (MCP) at the acquirer level. Local acquiring—processing via an acquirer in the cardholder's country—is the most effective strategy to reduce these costs and improve approval rates.