At Sibos 2026, Bank of America announced that it had executed its first real-time payment initiated by Bradesco.
Bank of America Corp. has completed its first pilot transaction for a new cross-border real-time payments service, partnering with São Paulo–based Banco Bradesco SA to execute the transfer.
The bank announced the milestone during the annual Sibos conference in Miami on Tuesday. The payment, initiated by Bradesco through its existing connection to Swift, arrived in Hong Kong dollars in a local beneficiary’s account via Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System.
Bradesco did not respond to Global Finance’s request for comment. The transaction’s exact processing time or cost remains undisclosed. However, Bank of America confirmed that the payment was similar to a domestic instant transfer and was completed in near real time.
Need for Speed
Traditional banks are facing stiffer competition from card networks like Visa and fintechs such as Wise, which says 74% of its transfers arrive in under 20 seconds.
There are also stablecoin providers such as Circle, which all promise faster cross-border payments.
Daniel Stanton, Payments Product Head in Global Payments Solutions at Bank of America, is betting that the firm can win on ease of adoption rather than speed alone.
“The solution is designed to work with existing banking infrastructure,” said Stanton in an email. “[The bank’s] clients can gain the benefits of faster cross-border payments without a significant technology build, new connectivity or changes to their existing accounting processes,” he added.
Expanding Global Reach
Bank of America announced the service in June. It is designed for corporate, commercial, and financial-institution clients that send large volumes of small payments, such as remittances, payouts to gig workers, and payments to e-commerce vendors.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said the service offers real-time tracking, delivers the full principal amount and gives senders certainty that payments will arrive. It also connects to domestic instant-payment networks, including Mexico’s SPEI, the U.K.’s Faster Payments Service and India’s UPI. Clients can connect through their existing APIs or host-to-host channels.
Stanton said Bank of America clients will later be able to start these payments through CashPro, its digital banking platform, beginning in 2027. “We will share additional timing details closer to launch,” he added.
Bank of America
Bank of America first introduced CashPro to corporate and institutional clients in 2009.
“We view this as complementary to our correspondent banking business,” Stanton continued. “It expands the payment options available to financial institutions and helps us meet growing demand for faster, more transparent cross-border payments.”
As for how many payments the firm expects to handle in its first year, it is too early to tell.
“We are seeing strong interest in solutions that can improve cross-border payments without requiring clients to make significant technology investments, establish new connectivity or change their accounting processes,” he said.
Surging Demand for Seamless Payouts
In June, Bank of America cited projections that cross-border person-to-person payment flows could grow 58% by 2032. Business-to-consumer flows could grow 131% by then.
Mark Monaco, head of Global Payments Solutions at Bank of America, touted the firm’s cross-border services earlier this month.
“Corporate treasurers don’t want to manage a patchwork of domestic schemes market by market,” Monaco told Global Finance. “They need banking partners to absorb that complexity.”
Industry Milestones in Miami
Announcements like these have made Sibos the default stage for major cross-border banking breakthroughs. For example, at last year’s event in Frankfurt, Germany, Swift unveiled a shared blockchain-based ledger. Over 30 global institutions backed the initiative—a move aimed at making 24/7 cross-border payments faster and less expensive worldwide.
Swift named Bank of America as one of the 30 firms involved.
Check out an overview of Sibos 2026 in Miami.
Anthony Noto covers corporate finance and private credit. Contact him at anoto@gfmag.com