When Legacy Banking Meets the New Global Payments Economy

For decades, migrant workers were forced to navigate incredible friction just to send money home because legacy banks shied away from serving them. This exclusion triggered a wave of innovation, allowing emerging economies to leapfrog the West with mobile wallets and real-time networks. But it also created a wide interoperability gap.

Cecilia Tamez, Chief Strategy Officer at Euronet Worldwide, experienced these challenges firsthand as an immigrant navigating archaic financial systems. In this episode, Cecilia reveals the big idea that solves this global fragmentation: turning a vast remittance network into the invisible infrastructure to connect legacy banks with the unbanked. We explore why Ria was uniquely placed to build this bridge, how AI is quietly revolutionizing cross-border compliance, and why this connectivity paves the way for a future where work migrates to people rather than people migrating for work.