Payments - Long Reads, News, Articles & Research: Finextra

Can open banking stand alone as the UK’s payment infrastructure?

Tom Hay Principal Consultant at Payment Systems Europe

Can open banking stand alone as the UK’s payment infrastructure?

The weaponisation of payment infrastructure by governments is not a theoretical risk; it’s a reality. In 2023, the US imposed sanctions on Russia’s Unistream Bank, leading to the suspension of cross-border payment services by banks in countries like Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan due to fears of secondary sanctions. This disruption affected remi...

31 March 2025 /payments

The top payments stories you missed in March 2025

Dominique Dierks Senior Content Manager at Finextra

The top payments stories you missed in March 2025

March has been a busy month in the world of payments. From regulatory upheaval to rising fraud numbers, here is an overview of our most viewed Payments stories from this month. UK Government confirms plans to scrap Payment Systems Regulator You probably did not miss this story. In March, the UK Government has officially confirmed its plans to aboli...

28 March 2025 /payments

Empowering European consumers: The future of personalised payments

Brice Van De Walle EVP at Mastercard

Empowering European consumers: The future of personalised payments

The European payments landscape is evolving rapidly. Technological advancements, shifting consumer behaviors, and regulatory changes are driving a move toward more flexible and personalised payment experiences. Mastercard’s research conducted last year, reveals that two-thirds of European consumers prefer to consistently use the same payment method...

27 March 2025 /payments

What’s up with all the payments outages?

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

What’s up with all the payments outages?

The beauty of online banking is that it’s – for the most part – instant. If your friend owes you money, they can transfer it to your account immediately. If you forgot to pay your bills, log online and you can pay them right then and there. Even on payday, the money should go directly to your account. However, payments outages have become more and...

05 March 2025 /payments

The top payments stories you missed in February 2025

Dominique Dierks Senior Content Manager at Finextra

The top payments stories you missed in February 2025

Catch up on our most viewed payments stories from February 2025. UK Government mulls abolishment of Payment Systems Regulator Our most read news story from February was the announcement that the UK government is considering scrapping the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) and folding it into the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). As it currently stan...

28 February 2025 /payments

Embedded finance: The future of seamless financial services

Thomas Easterby Head of FinTech at HSBC Innovation Banking

Embedded finance: The future of seamless financial services

Embedded finance can be defined as the integration of financial services, such as payments, lending, insurance, or banking, directly into non-financial products and platforms. Over the past decade business models in this category have proliferated, fundamentally changing how consumers and businesses interact with money, and providing fintech and f...

27 February 2025 /payments

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Understanding the G20 targets

At a November 2020 summit, a coalition of the world’s largest economies, the Group of Twenty (G20), tabled a roadmap aimed at enhancing international retail, wholesale and remittance transactions. By 2021, working with the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the G20 issued a set of qualitative targets – across access, cost, speed, and transparency – ...

25 February 2025 /payments

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

How to implement Open Banking

Launched in the United Kingdom in January 2018 with the European Commission (EC)’s second Payments Services Directive (PSD2), open banking gives third-party financial service providers access to consumer banking, transaction, and other financial data, from banks. In a practical sense, open banking was a major milestone in the journey toward sharing...

18 February 2025 /payments

What the US real time payment transaction limit increase to $10m means

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

What the US real time payment transaction limit increase to $10m means

On 9 February 2025, operator of the largest instant payment system in the US, The Clearing House, will raise the individual transaction limit to $10 million. This week, it was also revealed that the RTP network surpassed one billion payments, just 18 months after crossing the 500 million transaction mark. After a gradual uptake – taking over five ...

06 February 2025 /payments

How to establish an embedded finance strategy

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

How to establish an embedded finance strategy

Embedded finance is the digital provision of financial products within a non-financial context, such as the purchase of an Uber journey within the Uber application. This relatively recent innovation – accelerated by the wave of digitisation following COVID-19 – enables the entities that deploy it, in both the digital business-to-business (B2B) and...

04 February 2025 /payments

The MENA payments revolution: 2025 trends

Volodymyr Kuiantsev Co-founder at AKURATECO

The MENA payments revolution: 2025 trends

This article was co-authored by thought leader Gaurav Sachddeva. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is undergoing a payment revolution that positions it as a rising star in the global fintech arena. Driven by a young, tech-savvy population and rocketing internet and smartphone penetration, the region is undergoing a transformation fuel...

03 February 2025 /payments

How microservice architecture can revolutionise real-time payments processing

Michael Engel VP Software Banking & MS at Diebold Nixdorf

How microservice architecture can revolutionise real-time payments processing

Real-time payments processing has revolutionised the banking landscape in Europe. As new fintech firms emerge, legacy banks are looking to move towards a more agile, scalable, and configurable payments infrastructure. In the transition away from monolithic architecture, financial institutions are looking for a cost-effective, efficient, and proact...

30 January 2025 /payments

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