Interoperability depends on more than connecting payment systems. Countries must also trust the identities being verified, the data being exchanged and the institutions carrying responsibility when something fails. Cross-border finance exposes differences in digital identity, KYC, AML/CFT, cybersecurity, privacy and liability frameworks that may be manageable domestically but become serious risks once systems connect. The roundtable focuses on the minimum trust architecture required before two financial ecosystems can interoperate safely. It asks what must be mutually recognised, what data should remain under national control, how users can be verified across jurisdictions and where liability should sit when a cross-border transaction or security control fails.

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.