Wise (and now most cross-border-payments fintechs) sidestep correspondent banking entirely. The trick: hold real local bank accounts in every currency you support. When a user in Nigeria sends ₦1,650,000 to a recipient in Singapore for $1,000, Wise doesn't actually move money across borders. The NGN goes into Wise's Nigerian account; an equivalent $1,000 worth of SGD goes out of Wise's Singaporean account to the recipient. Money never leaves either country. The two-sided accounting illusion is what makes the model work, and why Wise can charge ~0.5% instead of ~5%. This lesson shows the four-line journal entry that makes one cross-border 'wire' actually two same-country movements with one FX revaluation in the middle.