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News and resources on payments systems, innovations and initiatives worldwide.

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Expert opinions

Anurag Mohapatra

Anurag Mohapatra Director of Fraud Strategy and Marketing at NICE Actimize

The High Stakes of Check Kiting: How Old School Fraud Exploits FIs

Last month, a major regional bank filed suit against a New York entrepreneur, alleging a check-kiting scheme that processed more than $72 million in fraudulent checks, resulting in $27 million in direct losses. While payment technologies have evolved dramatically, traditional fraud methods continue to exploit fundamental processes, resulting in lo...

/payments /crime Exposing Financial Crime

Toine Van Beusekom

Toine Van Beusekom Strategy Director at Icon Solutions

Sibos 2025: Time to Consolidate Your Payments Infrastructure

If you have attended any financial services industry conference over the past decade, chances are that compliance has dominated the discussion – either directly or indirectly – again and again. And again. And again. But as we approach Sibos 2025, a quick glance at the agenda is telling. With major regulatory initiatives like migration to the ISO 20...

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Eddie Harrison

Eddie Harrison Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Navro

SEPA is great. But it's done little for cross-border payroll processing

SEPA has been a huge boost for payroll companies. Instead of dealing with long delays and high fees, they can now move money quickly and reliably within Europe. That speed and predictability make it easier to pay people on time, reduce admin issues, and give businesses confidence in managing their cash flow. That said, SEPA is far from a panacea...

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Scott Dawson

Scott Dawson CEO at DECTA

Is the UK quietly giving up on its small businesses?

There is a contradiction at the heart of the UK economy. Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) employ six in ten people and generate £2.8 trillion in turnover, yet when consumers were asked if the UK is a good place for them, only 23% of consumers said yes. That figure should stop us in our tracks. When confidence in SMEs is low, it seeps into...

/payments /predictions Fintech

Raktim Singh

Raktim Singh Senior Industry Principal at Infosys

Programmable Money and Smart Contracts on Secure Blockchains: The Future of FinTech

Programmable money and smart contracts are reshaping global finance. By combining cryptography, immutability, tokenization, and CBDCs within the emerging Finternet, the financial system is moving from static transactions to secure, programmable, and interoperable value flows — unlocking trillions in new opportunities by 2030. Introduction: The Shi...

/payments /crypto

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Research

Survey

Payments 2030: What’s shaping the future?

Assessing the global state of payments modernisation in our latest Finextra survey. As we approach 2030, the payments landscape is transforming faster than ever. Many financial institutions across the world are on a digital transformation journey, investing in new technologies. However, many are held back by legacy systems in a world where speed, resilience, and reliability are critical. Finextra Research, in association with ACI Worldwide, surveyed 162 global industry leaders in the summer of 2025 to reveal how organisations are aligning their payments strategies with market and regulatory demands, the challenges they face, and the technological and operational shifts shaping investment decisions. Input from leaders at The Clearing House, Deutsche Bank, and the US Faster Payments Council reinforce both the significant progress made and the critical work ahead. As financial institutions navigate ongoing shifts in the payments landscape, modernising cloud and infrastructure capabilities has become central to delivering real-time, resilient, and scalable services. Download this Finextra survey, produced in association with ACI Worldwide, to discover: Current and predicted cloud adoption trends; Instant payment plans and adoption timelines; A2A payment growth forecasts; Readiness for rising digital payment volumes; Budget priorities for compliance vs innovation; Innovations set to disrupt the payments ecosystem; and Strategies for navigating regulatory pressures such as ISO 20022.

132 downloads

Future of Report

The Future of Cross Border Payments 2026: Strategies for Success

A special edition for Sibos Europe 2025 The pace of the financial industry is unrivalled. The cross-border payments landscape is rapidly evolving and maturing as emerging technologies develop, new regulations come into play, fraud dominates, and global consumers demand instant payments.  How is the industry responding to these changes, and what strategies are banking experts and leaders deploying to combat the onslaught of challenges as the future draws nearer? Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt will be a forum for conversation on the next steps for the financial sector, and how to conquer the next frontier of global finance.  This Finextra report analyses key innovations, explorations, and sentiments on the cross-border payments landscape, featuring key insights from Absa CIB, BNY, Crown Agents Bank, Commerzbank, the Financial Conduct Authority, FV Bank, HSBC, ING, Januar, JP Morgan, National Australian Bank, RBI, Santander, Société Générale, Standard Bank, Standard Chartered, State Street, and ZA Bank. It discusses:  Agentic AI and GenAI revolutionising cross-border payments;  The implications of a post-ISO 20022 migration world;  How banks are future-proofing their cross-border payments frameworks;  Financial crime and fraud prevention in payments;  The digital transition to cloud native infrastructure;  Challenges and opportunities in instant payments;  How rapidly emerging technologies will define the future of cross-border payments. 

411 downloads

Event Report

The Outsourcing Imperative: The strategic importance of partnerships for cloud-based payments

The financial services industry is at a pivotal moment where cloud technology and strategic outsourcing offer pathways to enhanced operational efficiency and competitiveness. Explore the Outsourcing Imperative.  In today’s rapidly evolving financial landscape, managing complex financial systems has become increasingly challenging for banking providers. The demands of mature cloud technology, evolving payment rails, and channels such as real-time cross-border payments and stablecoins require innovative solutions. Additionally, regulatory differences by country and region add another layer of complexity, especially for banks operating across multiple borders.  With the buzz around generative AI and other emerging tools, financial institutions must consider outsourcing certain functions to maintain competitiveness and efficiency. Enhancing user experience and regulatory compliance are paramount, as customers now expect a variety of payment options, from digital wallets to AI-driven payment agents. Outsourcing becomes key in today’s payments landscape, and financial institutions are increasingly turning to Payments as a Service (PaaS) to navigate the complexities of modern banking operations.  This report highlights the key takeaways of a Finextra webinar, hosted in association with FIS, by a panel of industry experts. Discover:   Drivers for adopting cloud-based payments;  Why banks and cloud are still an unfinished story;  Why outsourcing is necessary in today's payments landscape; and  How banks can change the status quo through partnerships. 

147 downloads

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FinextraTV

The Biggest Trends Driving Innovation in Payments Modernisation

Joining the FinextraTV studio at EBAday 2025 in Paris, Conor Colleary, Senior Vice President, Oracle Financial Services discusses ISO20022 developments. Describing the variations in preparedness - from fully prepared to more technically compliant - Colleary explains how the new messaging standards will enable massive data opportunities. Bringing Instant Payments into the conversation, Colleary also helps to contextualise how the payment sector is broadening out and enabling future innovations, such as QR codes, tokenisation in the back office and verification evolutions

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Events

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Long reads

Sehrish Alikhan

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

Top payments stories you missed in August 2025

Summer is almost over – catch up on Finextra’s top payments stories from August, here. UAE closes in on launch of Digital Dirham The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) will soon launch the retail and wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), the Digital Dirham, to licensed financial institutions. Having been in the pipeline for ...

Madhvi Sonia

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Why are orchestration tools essential within today’s payments arena?

Be it small e-commerce firms, sprawling corporations, or financial institutions within open finance contexts, organisations of all stripes must at some point face the challenge of uniting innumerable payment service providers (PSPs) within a secure and seamless payments ecosystem. The most effective way to do this is by deploying orchestration too...

Madhvi Sonia

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

What SoftBank’s PayPay IPO float means for embedded finance in Japan

Last week Reuters reported that SoftBank has picked investment banks Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Mizuho and Morgan Stanley to support a potential US IPO for its Japanese payments app operator, PayPay. In what could be as early as Q4’25, PayPay could raise over $2 billion from investors, but timing and the amount are subject to market conditio...