If emerging markets can build stronger domestic financial infrastructure, connect it across borders and reduce unnecessary dependence on external intermediaries, the impact goes far beyond payments. It changes how trade is settled, how capital moves, how small businesses reach markets, how governments exercise monetary and regulatory authority, and how regions relate economically to one another. The closing plenary steps back from the architecture itself to examine what this shift could mean at scale. It asks where greater financial autonomy could materially change economic outcomes, which forms of regional cooperation could create the greatest shared value, and what new risks or concentrations of power could emerge alongside that progress. The discussion looks ahead to the financial system these choices could produce over the next decade, and what role emerging markets can play in shaping it rather than simply adapting to it.

Shared payment infrastructure creates value precisely because competitors use the same network, but that makes ownership and funding contentious. Banks may resist paying for infrastructure used by newer competitors. Fintechs may resist access terms controlled by incumbents. Governments may finance the network and still face pressure over unequal access or rising operating costs. Different markets have taken different approaches, including central-bank ownership, industry-owned switches and open-source infrastructure. The roundtable compares these models through three questions: who owns the rail, who gets access and on what terms, and who pays to maintain and upgrade it. It then examines how those choices change once infrastructure crosses borders and sovereignty becomes shared rather than purely national.