The internet was supposed to make geography irrelevant. And in many ways, it did.
An entrepreneur in Ohio can launch a company serving customers in Singapore. A student in California can earn a degree in London. A software engineer in Texas can work for a company headquartered in Berlin.
This is the everywhere economy, a world in which work, education, investment, and opportunity are no longer tied to a single place.
Today, nearly 19 million Americans—roughly 12 percent of the US workforce—now identify as digital nomads, a figure that has grown 153 percent since 2019, according to MBO Partners’ 2025 State of Independence Study. Meanwhile, HSBC’s Global Entrepreneurial Wealth Report found that nearly half of entrepreneurs are planning to expand into new markets, while 57 percent are considering a personal move abroad. That ambition persists with US–headquartered companies, too. Despite a far more uncertain world, HSBC Group’s 2026 Business of Expansion study found that 83 percent of US international businesses still plan to expand overseas over the next two years.
The individual desire to pursue opportunity beyond traditional geographic boundaries is no longer a niche phenomenon. It is becoming a defining feature of modern ambition in America.
“In today’s everywhere economy, more investors are looking beyond their home market,” says Racquel Oden, US head of wealth and private banking at HSBC. “Their ambitions are global, and we are seeing them build businesses, make investments, and plan for their families across multiple countries.”
Yet something unexpected happened on the way to this borderless future: The world became more accessible, but it did not become simpler.
For every technological advance that made it easier to connect across borders, another layer of complexity seemingly emerged beneath it. Payments still move through fragmented financial systems. Regulations vary from country to country. Tax obligations, credit histories, education systems, and legal frameworks remain stubbornly local.
That’s the paradox of the everywhere economy: Opportunity is everywhere. So is friction.
The Great Unbundling of Place
For generations, geography largely determined the outlines of people’s lives.
Traditionally, we lived near where we worked. We banked where we lived. We built businesses and invested close to home. Industries were often concentrated in a handful of cities and economic centers.
Today, those boundaries matter less than they once did.
A growing number of Americans are organizing their careers, businesses, and financial lives around opportunities rather than locations. Remote work accelerated the trend, but it didn’t create it. The rise of digital commerce, borderless investment platforms, international education programs, and global businesses has fundamentally changed the relationship between ambition and geography.
Participation in the global economy no longer requires relocation. A founder can test demand in overseas markets before ever stepping on a plane. Corporate workers can collaborate across continents in real time—and move halfway across the world while keeping the same job. Families can consider educational opportunities that would have felt inaccessible just a generation ago.
For ambitious Americans, more doors are open than ever before. Access is no longer the challenge. Complexity is.
“Every time they cross a border the rules and regulations can change, and working out what that means isn’t always straightforward,” Oden says.
The Hidden Costs of a Connected World
The everywhere economy allows people to work, invest, learn, and build wealth across borders without relocating. But the infrastructure beneath it was designed for a different era.
A decade ago, navigating foreign banking systems, international education pathways, overseas regulations, or cross-border payments was largely the concern of multinational corporations and expatriates. Today, those same challenges now increasingly affect Americans who may rarely leave the United States but regularly interact with opportunities, institutions, and markets beyond its borders.
For entrepreneurs, it can mean navigating unfamiliar regulations, currencies, payment systems, and market dynamics while selling into new markets. For families, it can mean paying tuition overseas, supporting children studying abroad, or managing finances across multiple jurisdictions. For professionals, it can mean understanding tax obligations, employment rules, and financial systems that were never designed for careers that span countries, companies, and time zones.
For US enterprises, HSBC Group’s research found that economic conditions and regulatory complexity are tied as the top barriers facing US businesses pursuing international expansion, each cited by 37 percent of respondents, while 35 percent identified financial barriers as a major obstacle. As global opportunity expands, navigating the systems behind it is becoming just as important as finding the opportunity itself.
Many of these frictions are invisible and never even considered—at least until they become headache-inducing obstacles.
Look at cross-border payments, for example. Despite decades of modernization efforts, international payments remain slower, more expensive, less transparent, and less accessible than domestic transactions, according to the Bank for International Settlements. The Financial Stability Board warned in 2026 that the global goal of reducing cross-border payment costs below 1 percent by 2027 is likely to be missed.
“People expect cross-border payments to work like everything else in their digital lives—tap to send in real time and with end-to-end visibility—but these payments have to move through different countries, different currencies, and different rules,” says Tom Simpson, global head of currency clearing & North America regional head of cross border payments at HSBC. “That’s where friction and uncertainty can creep in.”
Payments are only part of the story.
A person with an excellent credit history in one country may find that history has little relevance if they take a new job overseas or send their kids to school abroad and need to open a line of credit for them. Creating accounts internationally can require navigating unfamiliar documentation requirements. Even information itself can become a source of friction. Americans can access investment opportunities around the world instantly, but understanding which ones are worth pursuing is another challenge entirely. How do you know how local markets, regulations, and systems actually work beyond a basic online search?
In many ways, the defining challenge of modern opportunity is no longer discovering it. It is figuring out how to act on it. As opportunity expands across borders, expertise becomes increasingly valuable—not simply to identify opportunities, but to make sense of them.
Why Expertise Matters More Than Ever
For Americans living globally connected lives, confidence comes from knowing they can pursue opportunities abroad without feeling disconnected at home.
This is why so many are turning to global institutions like HSBC, which can help reduce complexity rather than add to it.
“As investors’ lives become increasingly borderless, they need a trusted financial partner who can help manage the challenges of living and investing internationally,” Oden says. “That’s where HSBC comes in. We’re on the ground in key markets and we connect that local expertise with global reach, so clients can easily manage their finances whether they’re at home or abroad.”
HSBC operates across more than 50 markets, giving customers access not just to banking services but to people with local expertise embedded in some of the world’s most important economic centers.
Through HSBC Premier, the bank’s premium banking service for internationally minded clients, customers can access international banking support and personalized financial guidance for people with globally connected lives, helping them manage finances across borders while maintaining continuity at home.
HSBC’s wealth management specialists can help clients connect with the bank’s network of local relationship managers who have on-the-ground expertise to navigate the complexities of managing assets, investments, and financial goals in new geographies. They can also help families navigate increasingly complex questions around legacy, succession planning, education, and long-term wealth creation.
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For entrepreneurs and business owners, the challenge is often less about finding customers than navigating the systems that connect them. With access to more than 85 percent of global trade flows, HSBC sits at the intersection of the world’s major commercial corridors, helping businesses simplify the movement of goods, capital, and payments across markets.
“HSBC is making transacting across borders feel more like a local experience,” Simpson says. “We provide more ways to pay with greater certainty on cost and FX, and richer information in the payment message means it gets to where it needs to be faster, with tracking to confirm once it’s there. That’s how global opportunities become reality sooner.”
HSBC has teams across markets that can provide something technology alone cannot: local knowledge. In a world where opportunity can come from almost anywhere, trusted guidance becomes a competitive advantage.
Increasingly, international expansion isn’t just about finding new customers. It’s about building resilience. HSBC Group’s research found that many businesses now view geographic diversification as a way to strengthen supply chains, reduce concentration risk, and position themselves for long-term growth in an uncertain world. The right financial partner can help transform international ambition from something that feels intimidating into something that feels achievable.
In the everywhere economy, opportunity is increasingly distributed. Confidence is not.
The people best positioned to seize global opportunities will not necessarily be those with the greatest access. They will be those with the knowledge, support, and expertise to turn possibility into action.
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