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      Dr. Kati Suominen

      Dr. Kati Suominen

      Founder & Chief Executive Officer

      Nextrade Group

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      Kati Suominen is Founder and CEO of Nextrade Group that helps governments, multilateral development banks, and leading technology companies enable trade through technology. Dr. Suominen has ideated and built dozens of data and analytical products and pilot initiatives as well as eight global initiatives and public-private-partnerships to enable digital trade. She also serves as Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Adjunct Professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management. Earlier in her career, she served as Trade Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank. Dr. Suominen is the author and editor of over 140 papers and 10 peer-reviewed books on trade, globalization and technology with leading academic presses, most recently Revolutionizing World Trade: How Disruptive Technologies Open Opportunities for All (Stanford University Press, 2019). She is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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      • 9:30–10:30amTue 17 NovWorkshopWorkshop Room 1Open

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        Trust Applied: From Friction to Flow Across Borders - Powered by Amazon

        WorkshopWorkshop Room 1Open

        About this session

        What would it take to make cross-border payments an enabler of SME growth?

        Six years into the G20 Cross-Border Payments Roadmap, high costs, slow settlement, and complex compliance requirements continue to hold small businesses back. Meanwhile, agentic AI, stablecoins and real-time payment networks are opening new possibilities for paying across borders. In the face of tariffs and fragmentation of trade, improving payments offers governments a practical way to support trade through domestic action.

        Drawing on From Friction to Flow 2.0, a new Nextrade Group study of 1,100 SME importers across Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and Thailand and dozens of policies shaping crossborder payments around the world economies, this workshop will explore where reform can make the greatest difference. The report’s Cross-Border Payments Enablement Index benchmarks 34 economies across six policy pillars, providing a roadmap for reforms that enable businesses to trade more effectively.

        Participants will work with the findings to identify priority barriers and develop actionable, country-specific reform roadmaps. The focus: turning evidence into practical steps to reduce friction, improve payment flows and unlock opportunities for SMEs.