The U.S. lags the rest of the world in one significant technological area: payments. One reason we've fallen behind is the inertia of our legacy payments infrastructure, and the fact that it is more difficult to replace a working system than build one from scratch. Yet, while many Americans consider alternative payments non-essential, the rest of the world is silently surpassing us. They're building simpler, more secure commerce networks—and perhaps constructing the rails to leapfrog the U.S. economically in the process. Ingenious workarounds in areas with major political and infrastructural challenges can serve as a model for the U.S. to advance our payment system, prevent security breaches and conduct business in untapped markets.