American Express has published a report backing the need to develop a foreign exchange system based around blockchain technology, as it acts to shore up a highly profitable part of its business - the cross-border transactions it runs on behalf of small to medium sized enterprises.As the basis for a white paper titled "Payment Revolution" Amex interviewed more than 350 chief financial officers at Australian mid-sized companies on their approach to cross-border transactions. Amex said the survey was run to assess their understanding of currency risks. One overall conclusion was that few CFOs interviewed believed they were tackling the issue of currency risk effectively. Further, 36 per cent of respondents said foreign exchange would likely influence the introduction of new payment technology within their business during the next 12 months. The research also suggested much of this investment has been in the area of increasing payment automation with distributed ledger technology - or blockchain - high on the list. "Only recently has it evolved to become a viable solution for cross border currency movements," Amex noted. "Unlike traditional centralised payment systems, DLT allows payments to move swiftly between different international payment networks."Through this new technology businesses will be major benefactors with the almost instantaneous settlement of funds - a vast improvement on existing systems, which can take between three-to-five business days for making cross border transactions.The Amex report also stated that there were a number of organisations working together on initiatives such as the Hyperledger Project to define and develop industry-standard technologies, with an announcement in January 2017 that it would become a contributing member to this effort, alongside companies such as JP Morgan and IBM.Amex reported that "[this] partnership shares some of the technical heritage of Bitcoin, but will allow transactions in all currencies, starting with the major trading pairs including USD, GBP, EUR and AUD".Its study showed that 37 per cent of the Australian companies surveyed expected to use or trial DLT technology in the next 12 months. The next big disruptor to overseas payments has finally arrived.