Latest long reads: Finextra Research

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What are Faster Payments?

The UK’s Faster Payments service is back under the spotlight, with the Bank of England (BoE) recently being handed the reins of a long-overdue reform of the UK’s retail payments infrastructure – following years of faltering progress under Pay UK. The move came after Governor Andrew Bailey issued a call for urgent infrastructural modernisation in hi...

16 hours /payments

Can European banks compete for US businesses in the current global corporate banking landscape?

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

Can European banks compete for US businesses in the current global corporate banking landscape?

Which banks will lead the way in an AI-enabled, trade-war-torn global corporate marketplace? What characteristics will they have, and how will they play them to their advantage on the field of international business? ING presents an interesting case for knowing your strengths and customer base, while remaining flexible to adapt to the changing wind...

16 hours /markets

Orange bonds: Will orange be the new green?

Parina Parikh Senior Sustainability Assessor at DNV

Orange bonds: Will orange be the new green?

Sustainable finance has a visibility problem: the ‘E’ in ESG dominates, while the ‘S’ remains sidelined. But inequality, exclusion and social fragility are just as capable of undermining long-term value as carbon emissions. It’s time for finance to see orange. For over a decade, environmental metrics such as net zero targets, carbon disclosure

03 November 2025 /inclusion

The top payments stories you missed in October 2025

Dominique Dierks Senior Content Manager at Finextra

The top payments stories you missed in October 2025

Catch up on Finextra’s most-read payments stories from last month. G20's cross-border payments plan to miss 2027 deadline The G20's roadmap to improving cross-border payments was officially introduced in 2021. The G20’s Financial Stability Board (FSB) now reports that global financial institutions are set to miss the first deadline of 2027. "I...

31 October 2025 /payments

How to combat cybercrime with curated intelligence

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

How to combat cybercrime with curated intelligence

Cyberattacks targeting payments are surging. According to a recent Nilson report, by 2030 – when total payment card volume will surpass $79 trillion worldwide – the industry will lose an estimated $49 billion from card-not-present fraud. In an interview with Finextra, Rigo Van den Broeck, executive vice president, cybersecurity solutions, Masterca...

31 October 2025 /crime

Payments through the lenses of simplicity, security, and society

Teresa Connors Contributing Editor at Finextra

Payments through the lenses of simplicity, security, and society

Everyone wants to know where the payments industry is heading. But crystal balls are misty things. Headlines like “our industry is moving at pace,” “modernise your payment systems or be left behind,” and “get on board with agentic AI” capture the mood of disruption, but they don’t tell the whole story. To cut through the noise, it helps to look at ...

30 October 2025 /payments

The “immaturity” of AI – are banks prepared for AI data security?

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

The “immaturity” of AI – are banks prepared for AI data security?

In the past few years, we have seen artificial intelligence (AI) plugged into everything humanly (or robotically) possible, and the banking industry is no exception. As AI seeps into every aspect of financial services, data security is becoming all the more important. Without data, there is no AI, but without cybersecurity, everyone’s private info...

29 October 2025 /ai

AI in financial services: Evolution, not revolution

Adizah Tejani Ex - Global Portfolio Manager at Independent

AI in financial services: Evolution, not revolution

As AI mania sweeps across financial services, data points on its impact are emerging following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022. Much has been written about how mainstream adoption will be impacted. The University of Yale released a report titled Evaluating the Impact of AI on the Labour Market: Current State of Affairs, which exam...

29 October 2025 /Sibos

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is trade digitalisation?

According to a September 2025 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), global trade continues to depend heavily on paper-based documents, despite the rapid pace of digitalisation in other sectors. In the report, the OECD sought to quantify the benefits of reform and identified the various policy gaps hindering t...

28 October 2025 /cloud

How Spain is quietly leading the future of payments

Jordi Nicolau Head of Payments & Consumer at CaixaBank

How Spain is quietly leading the future of payments

When it comes to fintech headlines, Spain is rarely the centre of attention. Markets like the UK, USA, or the Nordics tend to dominate the conversation around cryptocurrency, open banking, real-time payments, and digital transformation. Yet beneath the radar, Spanish banks are steadily leading the way in shaping the next generation of payments inn...

28 October 2025 /payments

Safeguarding overhauled: What the FCA’s new rules means for payments firms

Charlotte Hill Partner at Charles Russell Speechlys

Safeguarding overhauled: What the FCA’s new rules means for payments firms

What’s the issue? On 7 August 2025, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published Policy Statement PS25/12, confirming sweeping changes to the UK safeguarding regime for payments and e-money institutions. The new Supplementary Regime will come into force on 7 May 2026. These changes represent a crucial recalibration of expectations around how c...

24 October 2025 /regulation

Which banks are leading the AI adoption race in late 2025?

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

Which banks are leading the AI adoption race in late 2025?

AI is top of mind in many banking circles right now. What a leading intelligence platform shared in its annual banking industry AI Index Roundtable is that for those institutions that have prioritised AI in their internal – and increasingly external – activities and operations, they’re widening the gap over those which haven’t. And it is getting t...

23 October 2025 /ai

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