PaymentsJournal

Digital banking has trained consumers to expect speed, simplicity, and instant results. Yet, when those same expectations reach the commercial side of the house, many financial institutions fall short—leaving business clients stuck in slow, manual onboarding journeys that drive up costs and frustration. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Penny Townsend, Co-Founder and Chief Payments Officer at Qualpay, and Hugh Thomas, Lead Commercial and Enterprise Payments Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the common challenges that often hinder commercial banking onboarding and explored how organizations can meet rising customer expectations while still maintaining compliance. Bridging Gaps in a Broken Onboarding Process One of the main issues contributing to onboarding deficiencies is the continued use of outdated systems. Paper documents and manual data entry are still a fixture in many processes, often causing delays and errors. What’s more, the complexity of onboarding commercial clients frequently requires back-and-forth communications, which can create bottlenecks and misunderstandings. Even when institutions manage to navigate these hurdles, they sometimes stumble at the final stage. “A number of years ago, I applied with a company and their onboarding process was particularly fantastic right at the beginning of it,” Townsend said. “But I couldn’t quite finish it when they were trying to authenticate who I was. Know Your Customer (KYC) was happening, and it went offline to try and figure out who I was as a person, and I couldn’t get through that process. I can’t even explain to you why I couldn’t get through it, but I couldn’t figure out how to take that last step.” These challenges often arise because organizations are trying to juggle multiple processes simultaneously—collecting data, performing authentication, ensuring compliance, and meeting security protocols. When institutions rely on outdated systems, more gaps emerge, making it harder to guide clients smoothly through the onboarding journey. This stands in stark contrast to the streamlined interfaces and seamless interactions that have become standard across other sectors. “I was trying to renew my driver’s license in the UK and the whole government process has been digitized,” Townsend said. “For me to prove who I was, it was a combination of using my phone and my passport. I had to put my phone next to my passport and it scanned my passport details. I had to take a picture of myself as well with my phone and that completed the KYC.” Commercial clients, accustomed to these modern experiences in their everyday interactions, are likely to resist onboarding processes that rely on paper documentation and lengthy communications. “Expectations for systems in things like B2B payments are being driven more so today by consumer experiences,” Thomas said. “If you can do this for my driver’s license, why can’t I onboard a new supplier with the same degree? Why is it not just a QR code or something like that? We securely exchange enough information that we know one another well enough to do business and to have a banking exchange between us.” The Juxtaposition of Departments Along with outdated systems, many onboarding processes are managed across siloed networks and fragmented workflows. When financial institutions rely on disparate systems for services such as cash management, lending, and onboarding, clients often have to provide the same information to multiple departments. This duplication can lead to longer approval times and higher costs. “A perfect example would be the separation that was driven by the changes that happened after 9/11 and with FinCEN, and this different structure where I have an underwriting policy in one department, but I also need to do my anti-money laundering with a different group,” Townsend said. “There was a reason why those two departments were segmented: because compliance has this strong role at a bank, but it’s juxtaposed with wanting to onboard customers, and then you have an underwrite as well.” “When you have people that have different focuses and they’ve not all been merged together, there’s going to be a lot of friction between what those teams do, and that typically creates a lot of the slowdown that happens,” she said. These delays may result from departments being physically separated, using incompatible technology, or operating under different rules. Additionally, a department’s main goal may not be to onboard customers efficiently. These conflicting goals create friction, which can lead to a poor first impression and even missed opportunities. “I’m always struck by the opportunity that often gets left on the table to better coordinate across departments for the betterment of everyone,” Thomas said. “A great example is if you do payables outsourcing and you look at the flow that’s going out to see what’s potentially going to FX providers.” “Off that, you say, ‘What could we do conceivably to get a piece of this FX business, knowing the volume that’s going out and understanding we have this overall risk perspective on the customer and we park this much of their capital in different credit products,” he said. “They’d be that much more of an efficient type of customer, but I’m always struck by the fact that through siloed components of institutions, you just don’t get that kind of coordination.” Driving Through the Lifetime As regulatory and compliance demands continue to mount, financial institutions are facing an unprecedented challenge: how to stay compliant without stifling businesses growth. Many banks still rely on processes that require businesses to submit the same documents multiple times across different departments—adding friction and slowing onboarding. Manual compliance checks can also miss critical red flags, leaving institutions vulnerable to fraud, exploitation, and costly penalties. These risks are amplified by an ever-shifting regulatory landscape and the rise of transformative—but not yet fully tested—technologies. “The latest thing that’s probably going to be the biggest impact on how we think about privacy is artificial intelligence,” Townsend said. “You’re seeing the different states are having a different opinion and we’re seeing the federal government come in potentially with an overall arcing framework for what we should do. That, in itself, will impact how privacy is thought about and how we deal with people’s data and where it can be stored.” In this complex environment, financial institutions are under immense pressure to understand and navigate their obligations. Yet, embedded within these challenges is a significant competitive opportunity for organizations that can turn compliance into a strategic advantage. “It comes down to changing attitudes around how you create this onboarding experience,” Townsend said. “Javelin wrote a fantastic article that talks about the onboarding experience being not just this moment in time when you onboard the customer at the beginning, but it’s something you think about it through the lifetime of the customer.” “That sounds weird, but when banks have so many products that they can offer to a customer—whether it’s a business customer or consumer—that onboarding experience drives through the lifetime,” she said. “How do you meet and bring products at the right time, at the right moment to a customer?” Starting on the Other Side Shifting the mentality around the onboarding process can be challenging, especially since many banks have historically outsourced some or all of these functions. However, outsourcing has become an increasingly perilous tack to take, as numerous organizations are now waiting to step in and address the gap if banks are unprepared. To stay at the forefront of the commercial customer banking experience, financial institutions will need to start at the very beginning. “It’s just that shift in attitude of how you can think about things differently, where we think about customer satisfaction first and how we can make that experience better,” Townsend said. “Then, think about how do I apply compliance and how do I apply all these different things.” “Have a different way of framing it rather than starting at the other side of it—this is why we can’t do this, or this is why we can’t do that,” she said. “Shift how you think about it, and that will probably be the greatest opportunity for change that banking might have over where we are right now.” Building the Bridge Altering this mindset is essential, as fintech competitors are often more equipped to handle certain onboarding aspects than banks are. For example, recent research from Capgemini found it can cost up to two to three times more–around $496–for a financial institution to onboard a merchant for payment services, while a technology company can spend approximately $214 to accomplish the same task. This cost gap shows no signs of narrowing, which makes it even more difficult for many institutions to compete. This means the future of financial institutions’ merchant acquiring commercial banking products will belong to the organizations that can shift their mindset from gatekeeping to guidance, and from a compliance-first to a customer-first mentality. “With compliance as the backstop to what’s going on, modern onboarding cannot remain just that one-time event or that disconnected checklist,” Townsend said. “It has to evolve into a continuous and integrated experience that adapts during the life cycle of a client–and also when you want to add and remove products. All of this will help strengthen the relationship over time.” For a financial institution to achieve this transformation, it is critical to select the right technology and partners that can provide a holistic view of the process. This means the partner should be equipped to handle all aspects of onboarding, underwriting, and compliance payments, as well as the customer engagement life cycle. While turning to partners f

As payments have evolved from cash and checks to cards and digital payments, something essential has been lost: the human touch. Yet consumers are not data points—they crave a payments experience that is fast, secure, and effortless, and when they do need support, they want it to shift seamlessly into something personalized and attentive to their needs.  In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Robyn Burkinshaw, CEO and Founder at BlytzPay, and Christopher Miller, Lead Emerging Payments Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the current gaps in the payments landscape, what an ideal model for more human transactions could look like, and how organizations can start to speak their customers’ language.  From Clicks to Conversations  Digital payments have reshaped the way people move money, bringing new speed and convenience to everyday transactions. Still, even with these advances, friction persists—from the hassle of repeated app downloads to layers of authentication that slow down the process. Too often, the very tools designed to simplify payments end up complicating them or leaving certain customers behind altogether.  “When we’re thinking about the technology that we’re building, we’re thinking about a bank box, and you either fit in the box or you don’t fit in the box,” Burkinshaw said. “Between 70% to 75% of the population fit in that and it’s easy for them to transact, but 25% of the population doesn’t fit in that. The unbanked and underbanked community doesn’t fit in that box.”  “If I’m in person at the grocery store, the checker doesn’t care if I’ve got $50 of my $100 bill in cash and $50 on a card,” she said. “But that has not expanded outside that bank box in the digital experience in a way that meets people where they are.”  Making payments conversational means giving consumers greater flexibility in how they transact. When adopted at scale, this model fosters an open ecosystem where all consumers—regardless of background or socioeconomic status—can access a payment experience that is both convenient and inclusive.  While some organizations have made their payment experiences more conversational than others, there is substantial room for improvement across the board—especially among traditionally rigid institutions such as government agencies and utility providers.  “I made a tax payment using a bill pay service and that tax payment was wrong by a penny,” Miller said. “The result was that that entire payment was returned to me and $0 of it was credited against the tax bill—and that’s good for no one.”  “You can imagine if you are a landlord or an auto dealer, if someone sends you almost all of the money that you want to get from them, you’d like to be able to take that and then have a conversation about whatever the remainder is,” he said. “A system that isn’t flexible enough to handle situations like that is one that’s missing opportunities to improve outcomes.”  AI and Common Sense  Payments challenges like these can take a real toll on customer relationships, especially as consumers increasingly expect transactions to be immediate, intuitive, and personalized.   “Consumers want control of their money,” Burkinshaw said. “It doesn’t matter if I make $100 or $1 million a month, I want control over where my money goes and how it’s transacting. We’ve gone from personalized relationships at the bank to digital relationships where there’s no engagement and there’s no interaction. I believe—especially in bill pay—we need to bring it back somewhere in the center where there is digital communication for convenience.”  It’s important for organizations to remember that every payment represents a person on the other end—someone who wants their needs to be acknowledged.   Yet, as many companies have become more tech-centric, that human connection has started to fade. The rise of artificial intelligence has only intensified worries about dehumanization, with many fearing that automation will come at the expense of empathy.  But when used thoughtfully, AI can actually strengthen—not replace—human connection. As part of a two-way, human-centric approach, it can help organizations customize their messages and move beyond the impersonal, one-size-fits-all push notification.   “The best AI is AI that is invisible,” Burkinshaw said. “People are thinking about AI as the end. AI isn’t the end, it’s a means to an end. It’s got to be paired with common sense; it’s got to be paired with critical thinking; but it also has to be paired with automation.”  “The cool thing about AI is it gives you the ability to wrap your arms around huge swaths of data, pull that data in, make it consumable, and then make it actionable,” she said. “If I’ve got data for the sake of data inside businesses, I have to understand what my KPIs are, what moves my business. Then I have to apply technology, AI included, in bite-sized pieces so that I can grab the things that are going to be effective to my business and make those changes.”  Payments in Flux  The more effectively an organization can analyze data and align insights with its objectives, the greater potential for success. In financial services, payments data—even from declined transactions—offers a wealth of valuable information.  “What happens today, especially in the subprime markets, is you take those declines, we throw the declines in a bucket and then we throw it at our collections department to go figure out what’s going on,” Burkinshaw said. “AI, in my opinion, gives the ability to be able to take tedious amounts of data and make it consumable in a way that can be effective when it comes to businesses.”  Understanding the trends behind these payments will be critical in a rapidly shifting environment. For example, recent changes to the credit card interchange fee model, prompted by merchants’ lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard, could change the paradigm for many shoppers.   Such changes may have an outsized impact on unbanked and underbanked communities, who often rely on payment methods that merchants may not always accept. These groups have already been affected by the decline of cash as a payment option, further widening the divide between the banked and unbanked.   Taken together, these factors suggest that more alternative payment methods are likely to emerge to better serve these communities.  Multilingual and Culturally Aware  The landscape also presents a significant opportunity for financial institutions, though these organizations may need to adapt their strategies.   Consumers are multilingual and come from diverse cultures and belief systems. There are substantial benefits for organizations that recognize these differences and adopt a conversational approach to payments.  This model can lead to higher collection rates, reduced call volumes, and stronger customer relationships. When technologies like AI are integrated effectively, it can also deliver operational efficiencies.  “The upsides are very clear,” Miller said. “If you think about the ability of a system to be able to speak in multiple languages and support folks, that’s a substantial advance over the requirement that you, for example, hire 10 people with 10 language skills to be able to provide that same level of service. It’s an important conversation, but any of these conversations have to involve not just the technology buyer and the technology seller, but the end user in an ongoing dialogue.”  To engage in meaningful dialogues that keep customers connected, organizations will increasingly need to speak the customer’s language—literally and figuratively.  “One of the things to emphasize is the need for bilingual communications,” Burkinshaw said. “If English isn’t my first language—or if English is my first language and I’m in a place where English isn’t the predominant language—we want our consumers to feel respected, connected, and valued.”  “We want to reach them in a language that’s convenient for them, especially when we’re when we’re talking about bill pay and we’re talking about the four to six bills that consumers are going to pay on a recurring basis,” she said. “Meet them where they are, address their needs, and do it in a way that’s not only convenient, but makes them feel like they’re a person.” 

Running a small business is hard enough—juggling operations, customers, and cash flow. Now imagine software that not only streamlines day-to-day work but also provides the financial tools needed to grow. That’s the promise of embedded finance. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Ian Hillis, SVP of Growth at Worldpay, and Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, examined the emerging embedded finance landscape, the value it offers merchants and software providers, and what the future holds for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) embracing this new paradigm. Speaking the Language Two forces are fueling this shift: the thriving U.S. small business sector and the expanding universe of software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms that serve them. “It’s been interesting to watch the evolution of the technology as the cost of delivering SaaS solutions continues to drop,” Apgar said. “The size of the business that’s too small to utilize software is now zero. Quite frankly, it’s a win-win for the SaaS company that you can use payments as a revenue driver, but also for the user because it’s easy to consume the service in the application rather than to source that service separately.” As these platforms become more deeply integrated into SMB operations, business owners are increasingly demanding solutions tailored to their specific needs. Vertical-specific software has existed for years, but it has traditionally focused on the largest markets—restaurants, retail, and hospitality. Now, with cloud technology lowering the barrier to building software for niche verticals, more SaaS platforms can meet the unique demands of their SMB customers. The result? Rapid adoption and a wave of innovation changing how small businesses operate. “In 2018, we did a study and came back with about 34% adoption in the U.S. for SMBs leveraging vertical-specific software to run their business,” Hillis said. “Fast forward to 2022, and that jumped up to 48%. If you fast forward to 2024, it’s nearly 64%, which is incremental and explosive growth in a short time.” “You’ve got SMBs that are using vertical-specific software to run their business, and that software platform is sitting on a lot of data—employee data and customer data,” he said. “They speak the language of that vertical and it’s a trusted resource. A natural evolution of that is for the SMB to look to that trusted relationship in a high-traffic area for expansion of additional products and services, many of which are financial in nature.” Reducing Time and Complexity For SMBs, time is often the most valuable currency. Embedding finance helps reclaim it. With the right tools in place, transactions become faster, insights sharper, and growth more attainable. “Each product is provided by a best-in-class partner who wakes up every day thinking about that experience with deep expertise,” Hillis said. “Service, support, and risk are all taken on behalf of the software platform, so they don’t have to take away resources from their current focus. That helps reduce time to market and operational complexity, while unlocking new revenue streams.” For time-strapped SMB owners juggling countless responsibilities, that immediacy is invaluable. Embedded finance solutions not only provide access to more effective products, but also offer deeper insights into business performance. With all key data visible in a single, unified solution, business owners can make faster, more informed decisions—and focus their energy where it matters most: running and growing their business. “We’ve seen some research recently where small businesses will spend 20 to 25 hours per week just reconciling data between applications—between their merchant statement, their bank statement, their financial needs, supplier invoices—all these things are basically taking a number from one application and inserting it to another application so the business owner can run their business,” Apgar said. “There’s a tremendous need to have a shared data set that can drive all the financial needs of a small business,” he said. “Then, if you look upstream from a supply chain perspective, especially when you get into credit products, having access to all that data on the SaaS platform gives the lender real-time visibility into the borrower’s business.” Growth Compounds Growth When a SaaS platform can use its data to recommend products that are relevant to a business, it evolves from being just a payments provider to becoming a true business partner. Taking that a step further, giving merchants access to capital directly within the software keeps them more deeply engaged in the ecosystem. “If I have an embedded bank account and I have a loan with my platform—and then I move into a commercial charge card or I expand into payroll—that becomes the spot where I no longer have to start swivel-chairing between all of these different offerings and I log into my vertical-specific software platform,” Hillis said. “That’s not just retention, that’s 360-value coverage on their financial health offering.” For example, a point-of-sale system provider for bars could offer a loan to an existing customer who wants to expand into a food truck venture. Loans like this have been shown to drive roughly a 15% increase in transaction volume. What’s more, data from venture capital firm a16z shows that companies embedding financial services into their platforms can see a 2x to 5x increase in average revenue per user. “That’s everything from payments to accounts to capital offerings—hence the wide range of 2x to 5x—but that means significant dollars for a software platform when you think about the average revenue per user basis,” Hillis said. “Many of these products create growth that compounds growth,” he said. “If you take a capital offering out and can invest in that as an SMB, theoretically your revenues then go up. If you’re already monetizing payments to the software platform, you see the benefit of that as well. You are delivering both increased value from the experience lens, and then you get to enjoy that from the commercial side as well.” More Runway to Go Although embedded finance is an important tool for revenue generation, it also gives software providers a powerful way to deepen customer relationships. This represents the next frontier of fintech—where companies move beyond payments services to play a larger role in their customers’ overall financial lives. This model will take shape through new products such as flexible loans, merchant cash advances, embedded account search, and commercial charge cards. Complementing these products will be platforms that unify and simplify access to embedded finance solutions. “In September, we went live with our embedded finance engine, and it makes it ridiculously simple for software platforms to offer embedded financial products to their customers,” Hillis said. “It’s leveraging that high-trust, high-traffic environment, and it can be done in a single sprint without having to push anything else from the road map,” he said. Platforms like Worldpay give SaaS providers access to services such as accounting, financial health insights, payroll tools, and even business insurance, which can be either general or industry specific. As innovations continue to emerge, these platforms allow software firms to integrate them seamlessly. For example, data-driven orchestration represents the future, with platforms leveraging artificial intelligence to deliver agentic, adaptive embedded finance solutions. All of these possibilities stem from the cloud-based software systems that many SMBs have already embraced. “We’re early innings on embedded finance,” Hillis said. “We’re just starting to see the threshold crossed on some core products. It’s been exciting to watch those get adopted, and we’ve got lots more runway to go.”

Creating a synthetic identity used to be the realm of seasoned hackers, but now it can be done with a few simple prompts. Just as artificial intelligence has fueled countless business innovations, it has also been a boon for bad actors—allowing cybercriminals to commit fraud at a fraction of the cost and with greater sophistication. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Danica Kleint, Product Marketing Manager for Fraud Solutions at Plaid, and Jennifer Pitt, Senior Fraud Management Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, examined how AI is rendering fraud-fighting methods obsolete, and the tools and techniques organizations can use to defend against future threats. The Flywheel Effect Bad actors use AI as a proving ground. Within AI models, cybercriminals can create and test fabricated credentials. Unlike legitimate businesses, threat actors aren’t encumbered by regulatory or ethical boundaries, allowing them to evolve their methods faster than fraud prevention professionals can respond. These bad actors also exploit vast repositories of stolen personal data from the growing number of data breaches, as well as the wealth of information that consumers and businesses share online. With more data and advanced tools, cybercriminals can now construct synthetic identities that are extremely difficult to detect. Compounding the problem, many financial institutions still rely on outdated verification methods. “When I was working in banking, I had to review customer service calls, and there were several calls where fraudsters called in pretending to be the victim,” Pitt said. “They would give static identity information—that’s all that these call centers were asking for: name, date of birth, account number—and they didn’t verify anything else. This is information that they’re easily able to get on the internet through social media or that has been leaked from data breaches.” To make matters worse, today’s fraud attacks are often highly coordinated, executed by far-reaching and organized fraud rings. “Not only do they have better tools to commit fraud, but we’re also seeing them collaborate more and share tips and insights,” Kleint said. “It’s this flywheel of a rapid increase in fraud across the whole ecosystem. I remember not that many years ago, fraudsters were just two people in a dorm room trying to hack a few things here and there.” “Now, they’re these large-scale operations where there’s even TikToks readily available to learn how to commit fraud,” she said. Layering Fraud Defenses In the battle against increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes, financial institutions can no longer rely on a single line of defense. The most effective strategy is to build layered defenses—a coordinated system of tools, data, and analytics that work together to detect and prevent fraud from multiple angles. While some organizations worry that such an approach could increase customer friction, advancements in technology have significantly reduced these concerns. One effective starting point is to leverage the significant customer data FIs already possess. With the right analytics, institutions can use these data points to run synthetic or stolen identity checks, helping uncover fabricated identities or records linked to deceased individuals. Beyond identity verification, FIs now have an increasing number of tools at their disposal. “An interesting one that we’ve been seeing catch a ton of fraud lately is facial duplicate detection,” Kleint said. “It’s a super simple concept: have we seen this face across our platform or service multiple times?” “But not that many companies are doing it,” she said. “You take a picture from the ID or from the selfie image and you just see if you’ve seen that face across your organization multiple times.” In addition to facial duplication detection, financial institutions should deploy systems that flag duplication across other identity elements. For example, if a bank identifies the same name or date of birth used to open a dozen accounts, this could signal coordinated fraudulent activity. Device intelligence and behavioral analytics add another critical layer of protection. These systems can identify atypical patterns in how customers interact with platforms, alerting the institution to potential risks in real time. Ultimately, organizations benefit from taking a broader, comparative view of customer behavior. By evaluating an individual’s activity alongside peers in similar demographic groups, FIs can distinguish between legitimate anomalies and genuinely suspicious behavior. “What a lot of financial institutions that have some behavioral analytics in place are lacking is they’re just looking at a single customer,” Pitt said. “That addresses account takeover for that customer, but it doesn’t address things like new account fraud.” “It’s looking at the device intelligence in the beginning to see if that device has been used before,” she said. “Is this typical behavior of a customer that’s in that demographic that gives this typical KYC information? Looking at the historical data of that customer—as well as the historical data compared to that demographic—is critical.” Shifting the Strategy Technology alone isn’t enough. More organizations are realizing that true resilience requires a shift in strategy—not just in tools. “Companies are focused on fraud at the very beginning, at onboarding, but it happens throughout the entire lifecycle of a customer,” Kleint said. “Often, they forget about how they could potentially have account takeovers later in the journey and we’re seeing that be so prevalent right now.” While continuous fraud prevention is important, one of the most critical strategic shifts for financial institutions is opening the lines of communication with their peers. By sharing data within an industry consortium, organizations can begin to leverage collective network insights—not only to understand how an individual or device has behaved on their own platform, but also how that behavior extends across other institutions. Because bad actors often operated in organized groups, it’s important that financial services firms work together so fraud attacks can be traced back to the organizations that initiated them. Still, many FIs remain reluctant to participate in a consortium model due to compliance and privacy concerns. While these concerns are well-founded, as long as customers have full visibility into how their data is being used and organizations encrypt personal information, consortium members can share intelligence freely while still meeting their regulatory and privacy obligations. “Financial institutions in particular are hesitant sometimes because of privacy concerns,” Pitt said. “They’re afraid not only will they violate privacy laws, but they’re also afraid that they’ll alienate their customers by sharing information. But collaboration is going to be key—if we can’t collaborate, we are going to continue to lose this fight.” Across the Entire Ecosystem Unfortunately, the fight against fraud is only getting tougher. Generative and agentic AI tools are advancing at a meteoric pace, giving bad actors new ways to deceive and exploit. To keep up, companies must adopt technologies that close the gap—and work together to establish stronger, industry-wide standards for identifying and preventing fraud. Perhaps more importantly, organizations need to make the most of the systems already in place. “Plaid’s network powers digital finance—one in two Americans have used Plaid in some way,” Kleint said. “We’ve seen a billion device connections across the ecosystem and because of that scale, we can see how those devices and individuals have conducted themselves across the entire financial ecosystem.” After all, fraud is ultimately about financial gain—and the surest way to uncover and trace it is by following the money. “We sit at the center, so we have this view that nobody else has,” Kleint said. “We can see patterns like a person connecting to six different fintech apps within a week. They’re using different personally identifiable information, but they’re using the same device or the same email. It’s these patterns that fraudsters are not aware of. They’re not aware that we can see all this, and it’s super powerful in understanding potential risks.”

From transforming member experiences to building a culture of information literacy, data has become a catalyst for innovation at credit unions. New use cases are constantly emerging for organizations willing to explore them, and artificial intelligence will only increase their value. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Jeremiah Lotz, Senior Vice President of Experience Design and Enterprise Data at Velera, and Christopher Miller, Lead Analyst of Emerging Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, explored how credit unions are collecting and leveraging data to improve efficiency and better serve their members.  Data As an Asset Forward-thinking credit unions view their data not just as a resource, but as a strategic asset—a goldmine of insights into both members and the business itself. While many credit unions have already invested heavily in data, unlocking its full potential requires clarity on what the organization hopes to achieve. The first step is understanding how the institution intends to put that data to work. “Look at what the data is saying, and how will it help us make decisions, as opposed to just for historical information,” said Lotz. “Once the organization recognizes that there’s an opportunity to use the data to make decisions or drive intelligence, that’s a sign of a mature level of adoption.” A key driver is executive alignment at the C-suite level, ensuring that the credit union can use its data to grow, engage and retain membership, and ultimately inform decisions. The next step is empowering data teams to suggest use cases, regardless of the division they work in. When non-technical staff can articulate business needs that data can address, it reflects a culture that is ready to move forward. “It’s a way to be able to say, ‘I have a problem’ or ‘I have an opportunity that maybe data could help me with,’ versus expecting people to say, ‘Hey, I think you’ve got data. Let me see these three fields and see if it does anything for me,’” Lotz said. Anticipating Member Needs Credit unions are learning that consumer data isn’t just numbers—it’s a roadmap to a better member experience. By analyzing individual patterns, institutions can spot potential financial challenges or opportunities before they happen. Using predictive insights in this way transforms interactions, moving beyond reactive service to experiences that delight members. “It doesn’t always have to be super aggressive,” said Lotz. “It can be more about putting something in front of them that might help in a situation, if they so choose.” At the same time, members expect their data to be used responsibly—but they often worry about privacy. Credit unions can address these concerns by clearly communicating how data usage benefits members, showing that it’s designed to make their financial lives easier and more personalized.   “Whether it’s coupons I receive or recommendations when I’m shopping online, we know this data collection exists,” said Lotz. “It would be nice to understand that my financial institution is going to use it in a way that’s going to help me, that’s going to protect me or maybe give me opportunities by predicting my behavior.” Predicting when a member might need a product is just the beginning. Data can also streamline everyday interactions. Instead of asking members to fill out forms, a credit union can provide pre-populated applications or automatically update existing accounts. These anticipatory actions reduce friction and create a tangible, member-first experience that sets the institution apart. “I have a mortgage with a credit union and it is quite possible for that credit union to predict that each year I need to provide proof that I have homeowners insurance,” said Miller. “This is not a magical data-derived prediction. It’s literally in the system.” “But to the extent that the credit union would be able to anticipate that this is a need—some document has to be provided and returned. The institution has to take that action proactively, rather than dumping it on me to follow up with. You have the opportunity to turn what might be transactional interactions into wow moments.” Enlisting the Whole Organization Data literacy isn’t just about understanding the data—it’s about understanding what lies behind it and how the organization can leverage it. That starts with conversations between data and business teams, which require a shared language across the organization. “By having that conversation at every level, you’re giving the opportunity for the people who understand the data to start talking with the individuals in the business units and the operations teams,” said Lotz. “Once they start talking about some common problems that they’re facing, they can start to look at data as an asset.” Identifying ambassadors for the data practice is helpful—individuals who understand how data connects not only to their regular work but also to new opportunities. Considering how to disseminate and distribute data is an important part of bringing non-technical employees into the process. When leadership can put actionable, accessible information into everyone’s hands, it fosters a fully data-literate organization from top to bottom, rather than concentrating knowledge in the hands of a few specialists. Urgency, Not Emergency Artificial intelligence has the remarkable ability to uncover patterns and insights within vast amounts of data, but it’s important not to put the cart before the horse. AI should inform and enhance decision-making, not dictate how data is used. “We have to focus on understanding governance before glamour sometimes,” said Lotz. “We’ve got to make sure we’re focused on responsible enablement of AI. We’re focused on data quality, model transparency and ethical use. Those are non-negotiable things when it comes to AI.” When applied thoughtfully, AI can power a range of purpose-driven use cases that support members’ well-being. From fraud prevention and personalized experiences to credit risk insights and financial wellness tools, AI works best when it’s focused on initiatives that make sense and deliver real value to members. “One of the things that a mature governance structure can do is communicate the fact that organizations have to deal with technology like this with urgency,” said Miller. “But it is not an emergency. If we don’t deploy the new tool next week, that is not the end of the world. It is better to do it correctly and in a sustainable, stable method that results in continuous new improvements than it is to get something out there immediately today. “There’s an opportunity to harness the energy that can come from throughout an organization, with appropriate attitudes toward doing things that are sustainable and lead to long-run change,” he said. “When you have a group of individuals who understand the technology can then start a conversation within the organization, that’s a great opportunity.”

The next iteration in the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence has arrived, and organizations are racing to harness the potential of AI agents to create a dynamic new shopping experience. However, as powerful as agentic commerce can be, the road to adoption won’t be without hiccups—many of which will lead to a surge in disputes. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Joseph McLean, CEO and Co-Founder of Quavo, and Christopher Miller, Emerging Payments Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the challenges that can arise in the agentic commerce dispute process, the steps financial institutions can take to prepare, and how disputes can serve as an opportunity to engage and retain customers in the age of agentic commerce. Navigating Uncharted Waters Traditionally, as the volume of payments has grown, the number of disputed transactions has remained relatively stable. However, as agentic commerce gains traction, this pattern is unlikely to hold. This shift raises many questions for organizations attempting to navigate these uncharted waters. “There is going to be fraud on these transactions; there are going to be mistakes that are made by consumers or by AI,” McLean said. “The regulations aren’t super clear on who is liable in these scenarios when consumers are making purchases. Is it the consumer? Is it the merchant? Is it the issuer? This also opens up new attack vectors for fraudsters, where they can get into the agentic commerce area themselves posing as other people and making purchases.” In particular, there may be a rise in first-party, or consumer-engaged, fraud. For example, an AI agent might follow its instructions perfectly, yet if the customer is dissatisfied with the outcome, they may still dispute the transaction. Alternatively, a consumer could intentionally make a purchase with the plan to dispute it later—claiming fraud or an AI error. These situations create grey areas, as liability becomes unclear when a consumer authorizes an agent but doesn’t directly complete the purchase themselves. It’s therefore critical that these issues are resolved before agentic commerce scales further, since confusion and ambiguity could be detrimental to adoption. “Merchants, payment processors, and card issuers are all going to think about this in terms of liability and consumers are going to think about it in terms of experience,” Miller said. “If they have an experience that doesn’t meet their expectations, that has implications for the growth of this ecosystem.” “If a consumer doesn’t believe that they’re going to get what they want by delegating authority to choose or to purchase some piece of software that we’re calling an agent right now, they might not use the agent,” he said. “That’s a fundamental limiter on growth here.” Trusting the Process To develop a stronger framework around the dispute process, several factors should be considered by financial institutions. First, FIs will need a mechanism to gauge the consumer’s intent when they instructed and authorized the AI agent. Given that AI systems can hallucinate or misinterpret instructions, it will be important to verify whether the agent accurately carried out the customer’s request. Understanding consumer intent is also critical because bad actors may attempt to manipulate AI agents—for example, by creating fraudulent websites or impersonating legitimate services to trick AI into making unauthorized transactions. These challenges also raise broader questions about how to proactively address fraud in an agentic commerce environment. “When it was a fake website that consumers visited, we could take that head on and teach people what are the ways to recognize a fraudulent website,” Miller said. “If it is your agent that is deceived—if one platform impersonates another within an agentic integration flow—those are entirely outside the sphere of consumer, they can’t do anything about it. It’s interesting to think about not just who is liable, but who will be perceived as having responsibility for solving that problem.” Issuers, merchants, and agentic AI developers may all need to take on new roles in educating both consumers and AI systems. Considering the potential scope of agentic commerce, an industry consortium approach might also be required to set up comprehensive safeguards. Regardless of the specific path forward, developing a framework for agentic commerce will likely be necessary sooner rather than later. “A lot of consumers are using this, and we’re going to see it happen a lot more in 2026 and going forward, but consumers will need to trust what’s happening through the agent,” McLean said. “They will need to trust their merchants, and they will need to trust that their banks can handle it appropriately when something does go wrong.” Fighting Fire with Fire To develop this trust, financial institutions can take proactive steps to prepare for the increased volume and complexity of agentic commerce disputes. Historically, many FIs have responded to spikes in fraud or dispute cases by simply adding more personnel to the process. However, this approach is unlikely to be effective in the new paradigm. “The best way to solve this is going to be pulling in more technology, better solutions that solve the problem end-to-end so that the users at the issuing institutions can spend more time focusing on the complex pieces of the work,” McLean said. “These disputes, they will look very similar, but it’s not going to be just more of the same. It’s going to be much higher volumes that are coming through the door and the complexity of these disputes are certainly going to be different than how they’re used to working through disputes today.” As financial institutions take stock of the dispute process lifecycle, several important questions will arise. For instance, how will the bank handle communications with the cardholder? How will it manage accounting or reconciliation? And how will institutions handle issuing a new card if one is compromised? These complex challenges can’t be effectively solved by adding more staff or connecting disparate systems. Doing so often creates siloes, which can lead to delays, errors, and poor experiences for both consumers and merchants. To address these issues, a comprehensive technology solution that manages the end-to-end dispute lifecycle will be paramount. “One of the things that we need to look at is fighting fire with fire,” McLean said. “How can we bring in AI and those sorts of technologies into the issuing space to help solve these problems, make faster decisions, augment investigations with better data and better materials to help those solutions work through faster.” “Making sure resolution times aren’t increasing for consumers, making sure that consumers are made whole, and following all the regulations. There are so many moving parts here that the technology is going to have to solve, especially when we start talking about the first party fraud piece,” he said. “It’s another layer of complexity that we’re going to have to deal with, and an effective dispute technology solution is going to be needed by every issuer to handle this problem.” A Moment that Matters As financial institutions search for technology solutions, they should consider platforms that handle the full dispute lifecycle—starting from intake. Platforms like Quavo’s offer a unified data solution to receive and track information, allowing institutions to create audit trails and leverage this data within their fraud systems to fight fraud more proactively. As disputes surge with the rise of agentic commerce, issuers will no longer need to rely on a patchwork of vendors, technologies, and in-house solutions—unlocking significant efficiency gains and potential revenue improvements. However, one of the most powerful benefits of a streamlined dispute process is its ability to strengthen customer relationships. “When a consumer has an issue with their accounts—and largely it’s going to be transaction-related—it can go one of two ways,” McLean said. “It can go very poorly and be a bad experience, where your customer may look to leave your institution—and all the research that we’ve conducted says that absolutely can happen.” “On the flip side, you can take this into what we’ve always called a moment that matters,” he said. “It’s one of those pieces of banking where you can build real trust and build a much deeper relationship with your account holder.”

Across shopping, streaming, and social media, consumers have grown used to receiving personalized recommendations powered by artificial intelligence. While some may feel less comfortable with AI taking on a similar role in their banking experience, a hyper-personalized digital banking platform can deliver far greater value than simply suggesting the next show to binge. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Fiserv’s Whitney Stewart Russell, President of Digital and Financial Solutions, and Sean Calhoun, Vice President and General Manager of Digital Banking, along with Christopher Miller, Emerging Payments Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the evolving digital banking landscape, the advantages of hyper-personalization, and the ways AI is reshaping banking strategies. A Perfect Storm of Opportunity For many customers, digital banking isn’t just part of their experience—it’s their only experience. As consumers increasingly integrate digital platforms into nearly every aspect of daily life, their expectations have risen. They now demand seamless, intuitive, and personalized interactions each time they login. For example, many users expect to conduct in-depth research or receive relevant guidance with just a few swipes or prompts. At the same time, one of the largest wealth transfers in history is approaching, with an estimated $50 trillion set to pass from baby boomers to their heirs. Together, these factors make it more critical than ever for banks, credit unions, and fintechs to deliver a truly robust digital experience. “If you look at younger generations—Gen Z in particular—Fiserv research would say that they are more willing than ever to move where they bank to where they are most happy and satisfied with the digital experience,” Russell said. “It’s almost like a perfect storm of opportunity to rethink how banks and credit unions show up for consumers and small businesses in the digital space,” she said. “Treat it as an opportunity to get not only a great service delivered, but also a true one-to-one personalized experience that allows them not only to get their jobs done, but also to seek advice and guidance and build a relationship digitally with their bank or credit union.” Tailoring Individual Experiences One of the most tried-and-true methods of building relationships is by tailoring each experience to the individual consumer. With the help of AI and data analytics, this goes even further—enabling hyper-personalized suggestions that deliver truly curated experiences. For many consumers, especially younger adults, these customized interactions are no longer a novelty but an expectation. Their digital-first lifestyles—shaped by e-commerce and social platforms—have already acclimated them to interacting with chatbots and AI agents, making hyper-personalization the new standard. Despite rising consumer confidence, many financial services firms have hesitated from placing AI at the forefront of their operations, fearing it might alienate customers. Yet, although AI is still a relatively nascent technology, these concerns are largely unfounded. Research from Fiserv shows that most consumers are comfortable with AI in financial services—at least to a certain extent. “We wanted to dig into the concerns that people have about AI getting introduced into money management in many ways,” Calhoun said. ““People are very comfortable and want to see AI providing them insights, recommendations, servicing up a next best action to them,” he said. “But at the end of the day, they want to make that final decision, that final button push—or whatever it might be—to execute what AI is recommending.” Balancing Promise with Perception Although many consumers are becoming more comfortable with AI, financial services firms should recognize that sentiment will continue to ebb and flow. “Even the folks who had not consulted an AI tool to make a purchase, (which was) a fair number—less than a majority, but more than a quarter, somewhere in that range—said that they would trust such advice,” Miller said. “I think it suggests that there is a long way to run in terms of consumers showing a willingness to listen to or accept advice.” “That leads directly to the type of relationship-focused attitude that is the opportunity,” he said. “As your customers experience feelings of concern, you can use that as an opportunity to build trust.” The Path to Relationship Building As financial institutions consider strategies for implementing hyper-personalization in digital banking, it’s important to recognize that this is not a one-time solution. The goal is to create a platform that continuously adapts to user interactions, delivering tailored insights and recommendations. “Nobody wants to run a campaign, for example, with a low uptake rate,” Calhoun said. “With AI and hyper-personalization, you can quickly learn what that user will typically click on, and you can start driving more relevant, curated recommendations and experiences to them, based on what they’ve done in the past or what they’ve accepted in the past.” In some cases, this may mean shifting strategies entirely for customers who haven’t engaged with prior recommendations. Real-time adjustments based on individual behavior can boost user engagement within a bank or credit union’s digital channels. Ultimately, the objective is to evolve the digital channel from a service utility into a relationship-building platform—a challenge for many financial institutions. “We know from tons of primary research with consumers, and talking to consumers out in the wild, about the digital banking experiences they’re seeking out,” Russell said. “The younger the generation, the more apt they are to want to have advice, guidance, and research tools within their digital banking experience.” “This technology application is perfect for evolving the digital channel,” she said. “It will help financial institutions that are now faced with digital being the premier, primary, preferred channel for consumers and small businesses; it will be a path for them to develop new relationship-building strategies.”

Different payment methods have gained popularity in different parts of the world. For example, buy now, pay later is widely used in Australia and the Nordics, while account-to-account payments lead the way in the Netherlands and Brazil. As commerce becomes increasingly globalized, merchants everywhere must adapt to these local payment preferences—or risk losing customers. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Tulio Gambogi, Head of Alternative Payment Methods at Worldpay, David Sykes, Chief Commercial Officer at Klarna, and Don Apgar, Director of the Merchant Practice at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the challenge of keeping pace with the wide range of alternative payment methods (APMs). While this may seem overwhelming for individual merchants, payment experts are ready to help businesses stay aligned with the methods their customers rely on. Connecting with Local APMs Despite the fact that payment rails connect businesses and consumers around the world, payment experiences remain local. How consumers in Brazil pay is very different from how consumers in China do. E-commerce merchants, in particular, need to understand and adapt to local payment preferences in each market. While supporting APMs might seem like a costly undertaking, the opposite is often true. Local payment methods are frequently more cost-effective than relying solely on traditional payment rails. “From my perspective, we’re usually a price leader because we’ve got 111 million active consumers,” said Sykes. “Many of them are linked to a bank account or a debit card. In a lot of these markets, we can be more cost-effective than Visa and Mastercard.” Even a small increase in total sales can offset what might look like a meaningful increase in costs. Weighing those costs against the potential boost in conversion is a critical exercise for any retailer. Failing to do so risks leaving money on the table. Using a Trusted Partner Once a company commits to adapting its payment methods to each local market, the process can quickly become daunting. For instance, it can be difficult for a head of payments at a large global business in San Francisco to determine the right mix for customers in Italy or Taiwan. “We work with the biggest retailers in the world, who have huge, sophisticated payments teams,” said Sykes. “I’m always surprised by how much they struggle with the complexity, because of the number of markets, and because the space is evolving so quickly.” Apgar added: “There’s so much buzz today about orchestration, optimization, minimizing cost, and maximizing effectiveness. A lot of merchants are tempted to want a direct connection to all these payment schemes around the world. But there’s a learning curve, and time to market, and resources to be invested. There are a lot of mistakes to be made before getting to that optimized point. And a lot of times the fastest path is to engage with an expert partner like Worldpay.” Payment partners like Worldpay help by giving merchants access to a growing portfolio of APMs through a single integration. This not only reduces complexity, but also lowers costs and eases the technical burden of connecting and maintaining multiple APMs. BNPL Is a Worldwide Phenomenon One example of a payment method with varying considerations across markets is BNPL. “I never saw buy now, pay later as a trend but as a trusted financial tool,” Gambogi said. “In Brazil, any credit card would come with installments by default. I thought that was the standard. When I started working in this industry 14 years ago, to my shock, I figured out that in other countries there’s no such thing.” When the phenomenon began gaining traction globally, Gambogi recognized it as a way to reach consumers who might not have made a purchase otherwise. But BNPL isn’t just a flexible payments offering to consumers—it has also proven to be a major advantage for merchants. “When you select a product on an e-commerce site and put it in a cart, you’ve already decided how you’re going to pay for it,” Apgar said. “What BNPL has done for the most innovative merchants is that by displaying that payment option on the product page, they get customers who are window shopping to see a product that is maybe is a little bit aspirational for them. They see they can make four easy payments with no interest, and suddenly they can afford it.” For merchants, not offering BNPL can mean a dramatic difference in conversion rates, average spend, and user experience. And the benefits of adopting it can be surprising. When Klarna introduced BNPL—traditionally seen as a tool for younger and less affluent shoppers—to retailer Macy’s, one of the biggest revelations was that around 40% of customers using Klarna were completely new to Macy’s. Even more unexpected, BNPL expanded Macy’s customer base in ways it hadn’t anticipated. “This was a great story, with new customers and a younger audience for them,” Sykes said. “What blew me away was that half of those customers at that point choosing Klarna were over the age of 40.” Avoiding Trouble at the Last Mile Consumers turn to APMs for a wide range of reasons. However, the complexity of these systems makes them more difficult for most retailers to fully understand—let alone implement and use on a regular basis. Even within a single country, multiple APMs may be widely used. Partnering with a trusted provider can help retailers identify which options matter most and prioritize accordingly. “Don’t bite off more than you can chew,” said Gambogi. “You don’t need a checkout with 100 different options. You need to focus on the three or four most relevant payment methods for that particular market. “With those steps in mind, you will be able to offer your shoppers the best user experience at the last step of their interaction,” he said. “You do not want to face trouble exactly at the last mile.”

Cybercriminals have been after personal data for years, but new technology is giving them a dangerous boost. Infostealers—malware that extracts sensitive data like passwords and credit card numbers—are becoming one of today’s biggest online threats because they are easy to use and hard to spot. While conversations about online safety often peak during Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the reality is that vigilance is needed year-round. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Tracy Goldberg, Director of Cybersecurity at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the damage infostealers can cause, how consumers can protect themselves, and how dark web threat intelligence is helping fight back against bad actors. Protecting the Keys to the Kingdom Malware has become a damaging force capable of shutting down systems and causing financial havoc—even to large-scale organizations. However, infostealers take this threat to another level, having been responsible for extracting billions of personal credentials. “What makes it different from malware that we’ve seen in the past like keyloggers is that infostealers are extremely sophisticated, so they’re capturing all kinds of data,” Goldberg said. “When you type in your username and password, they’re capturing the browsing history and the cookies.” “Some of these infostealers are sophisticated enough to capture screenshots, which is really frightening,” she said. “There are some infostealers out there that are specifically designed to target crypto wallets and digital wallets—all of that data can be captured.” Their sophistication makes infostealers exceptionally difficult to detect and neutralize. The combination of stealth and power poses a serious challenge to the financial services industry on multiple fronts. First, financial institutions must find ways to ensure the authenticity of online browsing and mobile banking sessions. Second, the industry must confront the reality that traditional passkeys and tokens are no longer sufficient to defend against modern malware. “In the same way that password managers have risks, because if the password to the password manager is compromised in a data breach—and we know people use reuse passwords—then the keys to the kingdom are gone,” Goldberg said. “The same holds true in this environment for passkeys and digital wallets and tokens because oftentimes that encrypted data is held behind a site that is password-protected.” “When we save passwords and browsing history, which most of us do, if that browser history or the cookies are compromised, then there’s no reason for the cybercriminals to decrypt any data, they get access to where that data is housed,” she said. “It’s an extremely concerning problem, and it’s one that I don’t think we’re prepared for as an industry.” The Cost of Convenience Many of today’s emerging risks stem from the new digital paradigm. While digital payments and modern technologies offer transformational benefits, they have also introduced new vulnerabilities. “If you have a credit card that is reissued and it’s automatically updated to your digital wallet, if that cybercriminal has already gained access to the password and login credentials that give access to that digital wallet, when the new digital numbers are automatically updated, they have access to it,” Goldberg said. “We have these digital wallets where our financial institution can reissue a compromised card to us digitally, which means we can start using that card before we get the physical replacement in the mail,” she said. “That convenience is wonderful, but it’s also made it easier for cybercriminals.” For financial institutions, this can be costly—especially if they must continually reissue EMV chip cards in addition to bearing the broader costs of fraud. Addressing this challenge is complicated by the limits of consumer education, which has typically been central to fraud prevention. It’s unrealistic to expect the average consumer to stop reusing passwords, regularly clear browsing histories, or log out of every device after each session. As a result, a new type of solution is needed—one that may require the industry to hearken back to the early days of digital. “What the solution is going to be, it’s something that we talked about years ago and we never made the leap and that is hardware tokens. These are physical tokens that you carry on your person that you use to log into your device,” Goldberg said. “Whether it’s your mobile device, tablet, or laptop, having that physical token is going to be the only solution.” “We’re going to almost have to take a step back in time,” she said. “Just like we would use a hard key to open our door, we’re going to have to take a step back, and that’s going to cause challenges for convenience.” Scouring the Dark Web In addition to heightened security on the consumer end, dark web threat intelligence can make a broader impact. This intelligence comes not only from collecting the compromised data found on the dark web, but also data from monitoring threat actor communications in forums and chat channels. Dark web threat intelligence has become critical because it helps uncover the connections between bad actors, who increasingly operate in organized groups. This kind of attribution is growing more important as technology advances and more sensitive data about online. The growing repository of digital information must be protected, as bad actors are no longer just a threat to individual consumers or organizations—their actions can create ripple effects that reach the level of national security concerns. “There are threat actors out there that on the surface may look like they are just targeting consumers for scams, but by looking at the tactics, techniques and procedures, dark web threat intel can tell us that there could be something more nefarious going on,” Goldberg said. For example, a threat analyst combing the dark web may discover a series of compromised credit cards issued by a single financial institution. They might then notice that the cards belong to account holders clustered in a certain part of the country. From there, the analyst would dig deeper to identify further commonalities among the affected accounts and potential links to broader criminal activity. “You’re able to say: ‘They all shopped at a certain grocery store or dined in a certain restaurant,’ and you just continue to narrow it down,” Goldberg said. “Perhaps you’re able to find out that all of these individuals were on a particular Facebook Marketplace forum and they were engaging with a certain individual who was selling BBQ equipment.” “Then, you’re able to say: ‘This particular individual who is associated with the account that’s selling the BBQ equipment also has accounts that use different names, but have the same IP address,’” she said. “From here, we’re able to connect the dots, and ultimately the hope is that through this trail of attribution, you’ll find out who the individual or individuals behind some of these malware rings and groups are and take them down.” The Benefits of Friction Through these techniques, dark web threat intelligence can be a powerful tool to track infostealers and identify the victims they have affected. As the financial services industry gains deeper insight into these threats and the criminals behind them, it can take a proactive and preventative stance. However, as these threats grow increasingly pervasive, cybersecurity has evolved into an everyday priority for everyone. “The most basic thing from a consumer perspective is that we have to reel in our use of social media,” Goldberg said. “Social media is not just a concern for financial institutions and consumers because it’s a prime channel that’s used for spreading malware and targeting consumers for scams, it’s also used for disinformation campaigns. Everybody just needs to be skeptical of what they read and mindful of what they post on social media—that would be first and foremost.” “Secondly, everyone needs to jump on board with the reality that it’s not going to always be convenient, and a little inconvenience and friction is good,” she said. “Moving toward an environment where we have a physical hard token key that we have to use to log into our device is just going to mean that our devices and accounts are more secure. I think that’s a direction that we’ll all be moving in.”

As dynamic technologies continue to revolutionize the payments space, conferences have become a critical way for payments professionals to stay informed and share their expertise. One of the signature events of the payments space is Nacha’s Smarter Faster Payments 2026, which will take place in San Diego from April 26-29, 2026. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Stephanie Prebish, AAP, AFPP, APRP, CTP, Senior Managing Director of Association Services at Nacha, and Brian Riley, Director of Credit and Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the wide range of educational tracks and networking opportunities available at the conference—and how attendees can accomplish months’ worth of business in just a few days at Smarter Faster Payments 2026. The Four Pillars Nacha’s conference has become one of the most recognized events in the industry, thanks in part to its educational offerings, which provide an in-depth look at the timeliest topics in financial services. “Our Payments conference is known in the industry as one of the best conferences out there and we’re planning another excellent year of education and networking and fun,” Prebish said. “We’re really just looking forward to it.” With such a full event calendar, it is essential for attendees to come prepared with a plan. That plan should make room not only for networking opportunities and keynote speakers, but also for conversations with vendors on the exhibitor floor. Amid all the activity—and the splendors of San Diego—there is more than enough to keep payments professionals engaged. Still, it is critical for attendees to review the agenda in advance and prioritize the educational sessions that matter most to them. “We just finished up our first-round selections, and the sessions next year are going to be fantastic,” Prebish said. “We are on top of all the big, new, exciting changes that are coming to payments. We’re going to be talking about stablecoins; we’re going to be talking about fraud monitoring; we’re going to be talking about everything that’s happening with ISO 20022. It’s going to be an amazing conference.” Defining the Audience The tracks were carefully curated to span the full spectrum of the payments industry, highlight emerging innovations, shifting regulations, and strategies for mitigating fraud and risk. New next year is a track dedicated to one of the industry’s most talked-about technologies: stablecoins. This track provides a detailed exploration of the opportunities stablecoins present for financial institutions, along with strategies organizations can adopt to harness their potential. There is also a dedicated legal track designed specifically for attorneys working in the payments space. Additional tracks focus on artificial intelligence, compliance and regulations, cybersecurity, and ACH. With such a comprehensive agenda, it can be challenging for attendees to identify the sessions most relevant to their role. To help, Nacha has developed a system designed to guide participants in mapping out the sessions that will deliver the greatest impact. “We’re going to have personas dedicated to who you are in the payments industry, and with every session it will be indicated which persona will be the best choice for you,” Prebish said. “This is going to be really exciting for us because it’s not something we’ve done before, where we’ve defined audiences by session. In addition to the tracks, you can also look at these persona maps and decide where you’re going to be best spending your time.” “Everyone goes to the Payments conference and affectionately calls themselves the rules geek, but that is actually going to be one of our personas—and also payments innovators, payment strategists, and FI leaders,” she said. “We’re really excited about the opportunities that the persona development has given us.” Finding Like-minded Audiences Along with innovations in its educational offerings, Nacha has also enhanced the networking opportunities at Smarter Faster Payments, while keeping long-standing traditions such as the Sunday Social. “We’re still going to have our tried-and-true events like our Tuesday Night Out, which is going to be held on the USS Midway,” Prebish said. “We’ll have our accreditation reception, which next year is going to be super exciting because we’re adding the celebration of our AFPPs (Accredited Faster Payments Professionals).” One of the best ways to maximize these networking opportunities is through the event’s mobile app. Attendees can use the app to locate and join meeting pods on the exhibit floor, see who else will be attending, and connect with colleagues to schedule time for conversations. Another major initiative at Smarter Faster Payments is the development of the next generation of payments professionals. Two years ago, the organizers introduced their next-gen initiative, a “15 Under 40” program designed both to highlight emerging leaders in the payments industry and to foster their continued growth. Across all these events and initiatives, Smarter Faster Payments provides opportunities for payments professionals from every background to connect, collaborate, and build lasting relationships. “We’re doing a lot more in the hall, so we’re going to be working with our Payments Associations and offering what we’re calling a community corner, which is going to be a place for industry groups of like-minded audiences to meet up,” Prebish said. “We’re also going to have Coastal Coffee service in the morning and then we’ll have Pacific Pints beer in our beer garden in the afternoon. There is lots of fun stuff going on in the hall as well as our evening activities.” Hitting the Three Criteria Although the event doesn’t take place until next spring, early registration is now open for exhibitors, and attendees can take advantage of early-bird rates—including discounts for first-time participants and those under 40. As this event has become the industry “who’s who,” Smarter Faster Payments 2026 is now a must-attend for financial services professionals. “When I’m selecting conferences, one of the first things I look at is the sponsor, and Nacha stands out at the top of many of the things offered for the payments community today,” Riley said. “Also, the tracks are important and those are really well applied, and then the networking opportunities. From what I’ve seen at Nacha, this hits all those three criteria for me.”

Gift cards have evolved from being a thoughtful, last-minute birthday gift into a mature industry that’s helping companies build loyalty both inside and outside their organizations. Their use cases are expanding rapidly, offering innovative ways for business to not only reward employees but also strengthen their bottom line. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Samara Swenson, U.S. Senior Marketing Manager at Prezzee, and Jordan Hirschfield, Director of Prepaid at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed how businesses can tap into this dynamic new landscape for prepaid cards. A Strong and Growing Market According to Javelin, the prepaid market was worth more than $300 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow over 8% annually over the next five years. That figure reflects just the closed loop segment; the open loop side adds an additional $40 to $50 billion, with a similar expected growth rate. Altogether, the industry is projected to reach at least $500 billion by the end of the decade. The B2B segments that Prezzee specializes in are also gaining strength. They account for roughly 15% of the total market, with a comparable 7% to 8% compounded growth rate. Crucially, the B2B segment could expand beyond the current projections as more companies adopt the emerging use cases that are taking shape. Aligning Objectives A full-service gift card program can help organizations align their gifting strategies with specific business objectives, whether that’s employee recognition, customer acquisition, loyalty programs, or incentivizing sales teams. Each objective requires a slightly different approach. For example, for employee engagement, HR leaders can offer highly personalized and meaningful rewards that recognize key milestones, accomplishments, and contributions. For customer acquisition, a prepaid program enables marketing leaders to execute impactful promotions, referral programs, and loyalty initiatives. Sales leaders can use gift cards to motivate teams and reward performance, ultimately driving higher productivity and sales outcomes. New Frontiers in Employee Incentives One of the key areas where gift cards are already very popular is employee incentives. Gifting employees helps them feel recognized and appreciated, and companies that do this often see increased motivation, loyalty, and overall productivity. “What many organizations might not realize is that this positive internal atmosphere naturally extends outward,” said Swenson. “Engaged employees are often a company’s best advocate, allowing companies to channel this energy into external marketing campaigns, customer facing initiatives and sales programs.” Javelin is also beginning to track how many people receive sales incentive through a prepaid program, and early data is showing strong signs of growth. “That’s been a bit untouched in employee incentives, but there are so many great opportunities to go multimodal—maybe have some that is cash, some that might be stock, but also an immediate reward. ‘Hey, you can go out and treat yourself to something because you hit a goal,’” Hirschfield said. “It’s not like you’re sitting and waiting,” he said. “You don’t have to do anything except load it in your wallet or go to a store and say, ‘I’m going to use that.’” Employees who receive incentives are generally happier with their employer. But beyond supporting loyalty at work, card issuers have found that gift cards also foster loyalty among recipients. Javelin data shows that consumers who receive a gift card are more likely to join loyalty programs, become repeat visitors, and even advocate for the brand to friends and family. As a result, these incentives go beyond providing an immediate reward—they can spark long-term relationships. Digital vs. Physical Cards As an electronic gift card platform, Prezzee offers plastic-free gift cards that help companies reduce their environmental footprint, supporting broader corporate ESG commitments. By replacing traditional plastic cards with digital alternatives, businesses can cut plastic waste while signaling their dedication to sustainability. Hirschfield anticipates that digital and physical gift cards will reach an equilibrium by the end of the decade, with a roughly 50/50 split in volume. Gifting is likely to remain popular in physical form, as people often value the tangible experience and gratification of opening a present. “When you have that ability to provide immediate access, you look at employers and employees, especially when they are remote,” said Hirschfield. “A lot of times, the person giving that reward is not sitting with them. That’s where digital factors thrive.” Solving for Unused Balances One emerging and valuable benefit thatPrezzee offers is the ability for businesses to reclaim any unused or unactivated gift card balances, ensuring that no budget goes to waste. Unlike traditional providers, companies only pay for activated gift cards and can also set expiration dates to encourage timely redemption. “From a broad perspective, unused funds (tend to accumulate) at what I call the edges of the value: either at full value or down to the last pennies on the card,” said Hirschfield. “These are mostly the scenarios where someone just forgets to use their card. When you eliminate that fully unused portion, you can provide better bang for the buck for that incentive provider and reduce those pressures on the brand. You don’t have that excess liability on the back end.” Prezzee also provides reporting and analysis tools, enabling businesses to track gift card usage and redemption rates. This data allows companies to continuously refine their strategies, reallocating funds to maximize impact. The combination of transparency and flexibility ensures that every dollar invested in gifting delivers tangible results and measurable returns. “We’ve seen some truly innovative and impactful applications,” said Swenson. “In emergency response situations, Prezzee has enabled organizations to rapidly distribute funds directly to those affected by crisis. Following natural disasters, our partners have provided essential resources to communities within 24 hours.

For decades, typically large regional or money center banks served as correspondent banks that enabled smaller banks to offer cross-border payments. It was rare for credit unions, community banks, and other smaller financial institutions to offer cross-border payments. And if they did, it was a money-losing proposition, offered out of necessity to prevent their customers from leaving for larger banks. It’s notable that the problem for originating institutions has become much worse. Over the past decade, the number of correspondent banks supporting originating institutions for cross-border payments has fallen by more than 25%, even as international bank transfer volumes have surged. Small or even medium-sized financial institutions struggle to find a correspondent bank. And even if one is found—the commercial terms, product issues from the opaqueness of these payments, customer complaints about slow delivery of funds and high fees, as well as service from correspondent banks—make the experience painful for everyone involved. But things have changed.  New software and new paradigms address “legacy bank systems”, “legacy product thinking”, and “legacy risk” in terms of cross-border payments. And for the first time, smaller financial institutions, credit unions, and community banks can offer their retail customers, SMEs, fintechs, and others cross-border payments that are faster, transparent, and less costly than the “big banks”.  Moreover, they’re very profitable as well as easy to implement and support with new paradigms and new tech—and no correspondent bank required.   In a PaymentsJournal podcast, Gary Palmer, President, CEO, and Chairman of Payall, and Hugh Thomas, Lead Analyst of Commercial and Enterprise Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed how smaller banks can compete and win in the cross-border space. Fixing the Root Cause Issues at Correspondent Banks What could reduce both the risk and the cost of cross-border payments? Fixing manual workflows is the first step. Digitizing and enhancing a correspondent bank’s ability to manage counterparty risk, transaction risk, and multi-jurisdictional compliance lowers the cost of processing each transaction and improves outcomes. Alternatively, some have introduced stablecoins in an attempt to fill the gap of fewer correspondent banks. But without fixing the underlying risk and compliance issues—they’ve added new risks. “A professor from a renowned European institution tracking various violations or issues with crypto operators in the areas of sanctions and money laundering has noted a marked increase in violations,” said Palmer. “And even though financial institutions may feel somewhat insulated from risk, this hasn’t been fully tested, and the payment system is exposed to manipulation.” Payall has developed end-to-end infrastructure and enterprise software for banks of all sizes and all roles, which removes what Gary calls “the fear and friction” from cross-border payments—whether these payments are processed through correspondent banks, new alternatives such as Mastercard Move, or stablecoins. Hugh Thomas observed: “Smaller banks often lack the technical resources to handle the complex demands of cross-border. What’s notable is how purpose-built solutions digitize these processes, lowering costs and opening participation in ways that weren’t possible before.” This means that smaller and medium-sized banks can now safely, efficiently, and profitably become correspondent banks or originating institutions. Banks Are Asking Too Much from Their Employees Millions of times each day around the world, an originating bank employee receives a payment instruction from their core system indicating that a customer wants to transfer funds to the U.S. to make a payment for goods and services. From here, this transaction is manhandled through an overgrown jungle of paper processes across multiple departments at the originating bank and its correspondent bank. It’s each bank’s responsibility to establish reasonable risk controls to mitigate money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions violations. Based on the size of the payment and other attributes, employees must decide what data to collect—contracts, invoices, bills of lading, customs declarations, tax receipts, or something else. They must then determine whether the documents are authentic or have been altered or forged. And apply judgment to decide if what’s been provided reflects an economically legitimate transaction. The bank employee also looks for sanctioned people, companies, ports, vessels, and products in this pile of documents, from an ever-changing list of sanctions.  Now consider the time, cost, and risk of error involved—even for a few documents/pages. Multiply that by 5, 10, or 50 pages, and the problem becomes overwhelming. And where do they record, share, and store the results—along with all the related data, documents, photos, and more? Not in core systems or digital bank platforms—because it’s impossible—but instead, in paper files, shared folders, and emails. What a mess. It’s a slow, costly, opaque, cumbersome, and risky process. The solution? Digitizing counterparty risk, transaction risk, compliance, and a long list of other previously manual processes eliminates the slow, costly, and error-prone reliance on humans to protect each bank and the payment system. New, Purpose-Built Software is a Game Changer “It’s easy to understand how AI and digitization could transform cross-border compliance,” said Thomas. “Software that automates data collection, verification, and document analysis has the unique potential to reduce risk and change the economics of participation for smaller banks.” Payall’s software digitizes all the originating institution’s rules, data collection, verification, and internal, as well as external, sharing needs. Soon, advanced AI will examine PDFs, audio files, videos, and photos, extract unstructured data—such as names of companies, ports, vessels, people, and currencies—and compare them against sanctions lists. For the first time, an originating institution, even a small bank, can fully digitize its Know Your Transaction (KYT) process for 100% of transactions in real time. Until Payall, these processes could only be executed by a bank’s employees. It’s too much.   Also, from the perspective of a correspondent bank working with originating institutions, nothing is more powerful than “see-through”—or 100% visibility into each rule at the originating institution, how it was executed, the supporting data and artifacts, including the results of 3rd party verification services—orchestrated by Payall. Additionally, correspondent banks configure their individual risk, compliance, or other rules to this incredibly data-rich payment set and take action. Instead of operating on “trust”—validated by occasional audits on as few as 0.0001% of all transactions, months after a payment—imagine the power of complete visibility into the originating institution’s application of their rules, processes, and supporting documentation on 100% of all transactions in real time. And based on this, the correspondent bank can choose to either accept the payment or independently execute additional transaction due diligence, including a new form of Know Your Customer’s Customer (KYCC). This is only possible with new software that enables instant, on-demand multi-country KYC, KYB, as well as specialty KYT. What was previously impossible to see is now not only transparent but can be directly and independently interrogated and decisioned by the correspondent bank—this is Know Your Customer’s Customer reimagined.  This is particularly powerful for correspondent banks that support originating institutions from regions flagged by FATF as having material weaknesses in preventing money laundering, executing KYC, or sanctions screening. Also, during periods of geopolitical events, bad actors can infiltrate banks. What’s the outcome? In the absence of comprehensive payment data and knowledge, U.S. correspondent banks are compelled to exit from the region or stop just about all payments. But in doing so, legitimate businesses can’t make payments or get paid, and life-saving remittances are stopped. The result? Chaos as commerce is crippled, and everyday citizens struggle to survive. While the bad actors are stopped, a country can be decimated. “For correspondent banks, Payall enables proactive, data-driven oversight of every transaction, not just retrospective audits or occasional spot-checks. For the first time, correspondent banks can go beyond trust,” said Palmer. “We’ve completely reimagined and redefined Know Your Customer’s Customer so that correspondent banks have 100% see-through into the rules and outcomes of an originating bank partner, and they can directly engage and decision data. This changes everything: it eliminates reliance on inefficient back-office workflows, subjective trust, and guesswork. It creates confidence in the safety of cross-border payments, and gives correspondent banks the control they’ve always needed, but never had.” Payall’s breakthrough software reduces risk to correspondent banks while ensuring legitimate trade is flowing and the most at-risk can still receive life-saving remittances. “This level of transparency and access fundamentally changes correspondent banking,” noted Thomas. “It’s no longer about faith that a partner executed its controls—it’s about verified execution, visible in real time.” Correspondent Banks Have New Competition While new software helps banks overcome legacy systems and legacy risk, Mastercard Move and Visa Direct are new paradigms that address legacy bank product thinking regarding international transfers. Banks and financial institutions of any size can offer cross-border capabilities that no bank has ever offered—such as transfers to mobile money, digital wallets, cash pick-up, and pay to card with Visa Direct and Mastercard Move. In

As more people choose to bank online, the role of the traditional branch has undergone a transformation. Once the go-to place for every financial need, the branch is now primarily a hub for more complex transactions that can’t be completed digitally or at an ATM. At the center of this evolution is the interactive teller machine (ITM), which enables customers to connect with a live teller at any time of day, regardless of their distance from a physical branch. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Fiserv’s Chris Geganto, Senior Director of Product Strategy, and Craig Demetres, Vice President of ATM Product Management, spoke with James Wester, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research about how ITMs are driving operational efficiency, lowering costs, and enhancing the customer experience at banks and credit unions across the country. The New Branch The financial institution branch is no longer just a place for simple financial transactions. It now serves as a vital connection point between consumers and the FI’s brand, its people, and its promise. Branches blend digital and physical touch points to deliver the kind of seamless customer journey that financial institutions have worked hard to create. Today’s branches even look different. Instead of a row of teller windows that once felt formal and uninviting, modern branches are open, welcoming spaces designed to foster personal relationships. They’re now tailored to support higher-value transactions rather than routine deposits and withdrawals.  And while much of banking has shifted online—or to ATMs to a lesser extent—banks and credit unions still need to provide customers with a meaningful, in-person experience. “We still have a very personal relationship with our bank account, and with our money,” said Wester. “We still want to have a very personal relationship with our bank. Being thoughtful about preparing the branch for that relationship is very important.” Empathy vs Automation One challenge for every financial institution is balancing automation with empathy. Automation is about being fast and convenient—handling routine, rule-based client interactions quickly, consistently, and accurately. It addresses most of what consumers need from their bank, but it can also feel impersonal. Empathy sits at the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s thoughtful and personal, building trust and emotional connection, and ultimately deepening the customer’s relationship with the financial institution. It’s also slower and more cumbersome for the consumer, but there are times when it is sorely needed. Filing for a home loan or opening a small business account, for instance, often comes at a critical juncture in a customer’s life. “Finances really drive the human moments that matter for us,” said Geganto. “When you walk into a branch, you’re freeing your bankers up for those human moments, for those conversations about what matters most in your life.” Automation doesn’t always have to feel impersonal. With smart design and proactive messaging, banks can provide a seamless handoff to advisors so everyone is working with the same information. While consumers may start with an automated interaction, many will transition to a more personal connection. To keep that experience consistent, FIs must be intentional about embedding empathy into the digital journey that leads to an ITM. “Although it’s automated, it’s still a personal relationship between the banker and the actual customer itself that directs them to the actual ITM,” said Demetres. “These small credit unions and financial institutions need to make sure that they still have the person there to interact with the customer, whether it be on video or in person.” ITMs Bridge the Gap An ITM essentially extends the branch experience, expanding service hours and the geographic reach of the branch. It gives consumers the flexibility to conduct transactions on their own schedule, while still providing access to a human when needed. ITMs also unify the digital and physical channels, bringing channel convergence to life. “Your brand ethos is coming through that machine because you have trained your universal bankers who are on the other end of that machine in the engagement model that you spent so much time and effort and money to develop,” said Geganto. “It’s being replicated in a digital fashion.” For any smaller bank or credit union considering an ITM, the first question should be whether the experience can be customized. Can multiple languages be added to support the customer base? Will the voice guidance convey the right tone? Do the visual elements on screen reflect the brand? The automation should feel like a natural extension of the institution, not a generic out-of-the-box solution. Ensuring That the Crew Is Ready Staffing the ITM is a crucial part of the overall model. The team on the other side of the video must understand that the customer is navigating the system on their own but is seeking guidance. They need to be trained to recognize the types of critical situations that would bring a customer to the ITM, as well as to understand the strategy that the financial institution is deploying. They also need to monitor the data being collected closely. Reviewing analytics is a necessary part of making sure the strategy is effective and to identify areas for adjustment. “The banks and credit unions have to make sure they are being efficient while still keeping that human touch,” said Demetres. “They have to see what accounts and transactions are working, while keeping the human involvement.” Keeping the Human Touch ITMs have proven especially beneficial to credit unions and smaller banks that may not have the capacity for a fully staffed branch with extended hours. They can personalize ITMs to their own needs, reinforcing their brand while enhancing the ability to bring a personal touch to customer interactions. Whether a customer needs to complete a simple transaction or a more complex one, whether they require automation or a human touch, an ITM delivers. “First and foremost, it keeps the human in the loop, because finances are freely personal,” said Geganto. “When you remove the person, finances are just finances. You need the personal touch because it’s about helping them through those life moments. For every consumer you do that with, you’re building trust and transforming them into a brand ambassador for you.” Demetres added: “The customer needs to know that there’s always somebody there to support them. ‘Oh, I got this now. I’m never going to have to ask somebody how to use an ATM… how to use an ITM going forward.’ That’s a customer for life.”

Almost without notice, disappearing payments have shifted from novelty to expectation in small business transactions. A traveler arrives at an airport, books a rideshare, and checks into a hotel—never pulling out a wallet or handing over a card. The transaction happens seamlessly, almost invisibly. The same technology fueling consumer-facing apps is now within reach for small businesses. Research from Worldpay shows that 90% of small businesses consider embedded finance—the integration of financial services, including payments, directly into non-financial offerings—essential to their growth. In a PaymentsJournal podcast, Matt Downs, Group President of Worldpay for Platforms, and Christopher Miller, Lead Analyst of Emerging Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed how technological advances are making small business payments both more sophisticated and less visible at the same time. “Why are payments disappearing?” asked Downs. “Because consumers want ease. They don't want to see the friction.” The Sweet Spot While they may see the benefit of disappearing payments, a small business faces a different reality than an independent contractor driving for a rideshare company. For small businesses, payments cannot simply vanish into the background. They need visibility and control—both to verify that transactions have been completed and to manage cash flow. Likewise, consumers may prefer that payments remain somewhat visible when dealing with small businesses, so they can make more informed choices based on factors like price or payment size.  The sweet spot is a system where consumer can choose to dip, chip, or use a digital wallet—without having to rethink that decision every time they pay a small business. For the business, it means having access to a payment process that feels sophisticated yet intuitive, flexible yet low-effort to manage.  “Building a solution that supports all of those elements is very challenging,” said Miller. “You have to be able to support all the way through the design elements and what the interface looks like, all the way back to the seamless handling of the payment processing itself.” Integrating into New Verticals The concept of delivering targeted lending within verticals is not new, but it has not yet been fully woven into the consumer experience. For example, a veterinary office may have offered a financing plan in the past, but it likely wasn’t something a customer could access through the same website where they booked their appointment. For the doctor, providing a lending product with fast approval that integrates directly into their existing systems can become a meaningful competitive advantage. “If you are a vet, the last thing you want to do is evaluate a bunch of different lending programs and take seven sales calls from seven lending programs to evaluate the right one who can integrate the lending product directly to the patient experience,” said Miller. “The market is looking for a solution that meets the needs with a minimum of risk.” The beauty of a vertical solution is that it is tailored to a business’ individual needs—whether that business is a veterinary practice, a restaurant, or a dry cleaner. To be effective, the software provider must understand the workflow, revenue streams, and nuances of the business, no matter how niche. Payments have evolved not only by becoming more complex, with more options for both payers and payees, but also by becoming increasingly specialized for the unique requirements of each business type. “That's a whole new spin on finance,” said Downs. “Fifteen years ago, there were pretty good payment options out there for retail and restaurants, although they were pretty expensive until the cloud drove the cost down. But that also allowed more entrants to come in and say, ‘Hey, I want to solve use cases for veterinarians or food pop-up trucks.’” The specialization adds complexity to the process, making an embedded payment solution more of a necessity. “In an ever-evolving landscape of payment acceptance options, the number of merchants who are actually able to manage that on their own and make decisions to add or not add or build in the integrations is vanishingly small,” said Miller. “The idea that a platform is better situated to manage that complexity and that change is kind of a slam dunk.” Building Through AI Artificial intelligence is an important component of these new platforms. It helps companies better understand their customers’ needs and plays a key role in driving technological development. “It allows room for new entrants to come in and shake up weak software companies that weren't good at understanding their customers at their core,” said Downs. “It's going to challenge them. It's going to have an effect on who the winners and losers are in this space. But in the end, the small businesses and consumers will win because they're going to get better served.” Embedding AI directly into products gives merchants access to the insights that can transform a business. While AI requires large amounts of data, integrating it into a platform allows businesses with limited data to benefit from powerful analytics. For example, a small vet clinic may not have enough payment data on its own clients to accurately assess risk profiles—but AI can change that. While small businesses aspire to be sophisticated payment processers, they also don't want a separate piece of software for the front office, another for the back office, a standalone banking suite, and so on. This has given rise to the notion of the “everything platform,”—software designed to help companies meet all of their processing needs in one place. With advancements in AI and technologies that can connect and integrate multiple platforms, the ecosystem is now ripe for embedded payments to support small businesses. Very few merchants are capable of managing their payments independently while deciding which integrations to adopt. Embedded payments allow their processes to remain not only customized but also state-of-the-art. “We take the heavy lifting, the operations, the payments, the financial underwriting, liability, everything that comes with adding more on,” said Downs. “We take that off the software company with a goal of just making sure it works for businesses and the consumer.”

Customers signing up for new accounts and services can feel frustrated by the hoops they have to go through, assembling information and entering it in complicated, sometimes multiple forms, whether on paper or online. What they may not realize is that the process can be just as frustrating for the people working at financial institutions, or other businesses performing underwriting functions. Too often, technology forces both consumers and businesses to adapt to outdated onboarding processes rather than the other way around. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Penny Townsend, Chief Product Officer at Qualpay, and Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed how the next generation of onboarding and underwriting procedures could bring greater efficiency and effectiveness for everyone involved. A Siloed Approach to Onboarding Onboarding is a financial services company’s first opportunity to build a relationship with its customers, so it’s vital to make the process as painless as possible. Yet too many companies still make it cumbersome. For example: “When people sign up for a bank account, and want a debit or credit card along with the bank account there are multiple applications they have to fill out,” said Townsend. “If I applied for two or three different services, I likely have to fill in secondary and tertiary applications that don't copy over the data already fed into it.” Financial services companies have long been a siloed environment, but many organizations are realizing that by connecting their onboarding processes, they can also streamline their internal systems. For example, it’s possible to combine for a business, a bank account, credit card processing, and ACH transaction processing into one application that flows seamlessly through underwriting. The key is to templatize the information and present it in a data-driven, no-code way, creating a unified experience across all financial products. The goal should be to shift the effort of customers bending to how the technology, the vendor and the implementation require data to be input to how can we optimize the experience to reduce repetition and breakdown the silos that existing for different financial products. Creating better customer experience and more transparency and integrity in the data used to manage ongoing risk and compliance. “My team is out there talking to people about how they actually onboard customers,” said Townsend. “Sometimes if some of the data has to change on the application, a new application has to be sent out, creating friction right at the beginning. Some applications are manually underwritten, which means they take the data set, log into the third-party tools, then verify that the data set matches what was on the application. After they've done the data verification, they'll do the physical underwrite, but they're manually inputting it maybe into two or three different systems for different tracking purposes. “So if you ask me about how automation helps scale onboarding operations, it's a game changer,” said Townsend. “Move away from the bespoke applications that people have bought in order to solve problems, and start looking more broadly and more holistically. Ask the question, “how can I delight the consumer when they're applying for something?” By making the onboarding experience as efficient, effective, and speedy as possible.” Bundling the Processes The implications extend beyond onboarding efficiencies. Consolidating multiple workflows into a single system powered by a common dataset not only streamlines operations but also enables businesses to present products together in combinations that align with how consumers prefer to buy them. “If somebody comes in to open a business DDA, you can ask if they would like to set up merchant services at the same time,” said Apgar. “You're not making them go through a separate application.

Amid the rise of subscriptions and digital services, consumers are juggling more bills than ever. In fact, the average U.S. household now pays around 10 bills each month—a growing list that can be tricky to track and manage. While more consumers are turning to their financial institution for help managing these responsibilities, many banks have continued to direct their innovation investments elsewhere. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Shilpi Mittal, Director of Product Management at Fiserv, and James Wester, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the current state of bill pay, how the service drives customer engagement, and what’s next on the roadmap for bill pay innovation. Not Just a Utility Bill pay services have been a staple at banks for decades. Yet, because most financial institutions have robust, well-established processes in place, bill pay is often viewed as a basic, no-frills offering. “It seems like the state of bill pay is this thing you must offer because people expect it,” Wester said. “But there are so many other ways that people want to pay bills—whether it's through digital channels or through a third party. Unfortunately, the bill pay product itself is still that basic portal where you go in, you find the company you want to pay, you enter an amount, and it gets paid.” While nearly every bank provides bill pay, it remains an indispensable service—after all, paying bills is an unavoidable part of life for most consumers. What’s more, the rising cost of many household expenses has driven the total U.S. bill pay market to new heights, now valued at roughly $4.46 trillion annually. “That's not just a utility, it's a massive consumer touchpoint,” Mittal said. “For years, financial institutions have treated bill pay as table stakes. It just was, so it didn't get prioritized for innovation and that's a missed opportunity. Bill pay directly impacts digital engagement, trust, and customer privacy.” A well-optimized bill pay has a strong correlation with customer retention, in part because it fosters regular, ongoing engagement. This consistent interaction creates more opportunities for financial institutions to become embedded in their customers’ daily lives. Once customers are drawn into a financial institution’s digital ecosystem through bill pay, many naturally explore additional products and services. “Be it a mortgage, a car loan, or a credit card—whatever it is—that consumers then say: ‘Hey, this is the place I pay my bills; this is also the place I manage my money; this is the place that I trust for my financial services; let me go look and see where I can find other things,’” Wester said. A Natural Moment of Engagement An improved customer experience is one byproduct of an efficient bill pay service, but there are many other benefits for financial institutions. “We partnered with a major financial institution to study this and found that customers who actively use bill pay maintain much higher loan balances, grow their deposit balances faster, and bring significantly higher net profit and profit growth compared to those who don't pay their bills through their bank channel,” Mittal said. The impacts go beyond financial metrics. Bill payments drive more frequent logins, especially around due dates. This creates a natural moment of engagement—and if the experience is smooth and intuitive, users will keep coming back. Banks can capitalize on this behavior in several ways. Historically, bill pay has been desktop-first, but in recent years there’s been a strong shift toward mobile payments. A simplified, mobile-first payment flow reduces friction and abandonment, making it essential for every institution—especially those serving younger customers. “Legacy bill pay systems are missing the mark on how consumers, especially younger generations, manage their money today,” Mittal said. “Millennials and Gen Z use global banking five times more ...

In just the first half of the year, ACH payment volume grew by 5.5% on a daily average basis, reaching roughly 17.25 billion payments. The growth is even more pronounced in terms of dollar value, with the ACH Network processing $45 trillion in the first half of 2025—a 6.8% increase compared to the same period last year. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Michael Herd, Executive Vice President of ACH Network Administration at Nacha, and Brian Riley, Director of Credit and Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, examined the state of ACH, the payment types that are driving growth, and the future of the pay-by-bank. Hitting on All Cylinders According to Nacha, the ACH Network is experiencing substantial momentum and is on track to add two billion payments in 2025. The persistent growth signals that the ACH Network is poised to maintain its upward trajectory. “When I look at the metrics and consider ACH, quite often you're just looking for general growth,” Riley said. “I look at the total volume of payments and that was solidly up, and the dollar value was significantly up. When you compare that to debit volumes in the U.S.—which only grew by 1%—it's really significant. I see everything hitting on all cylinders.” Continuing Long-Standing Trends This shift is especially notable because it’s spread across multiple payment types. First, there are Same Day ACH payments—transactions that clear and settle on the same day they're initiated. Volume rose by 15% year-over-year in Q2, putting this format on track to reach 1.3 billion same-day payments this year. “The second area I wanted to call out are business-to-business payments,” Herd said. “B2B volume on the ACH Network increased by over 10%, and this is a long-standing trend in ACH. While there are still pockets of check payments that are in use in the B2B space, I think it's also clear by now that ACH is the predominant payment method in B2B. They tend to be much larger dollar payments and so that boosts the dollar volume that is moving through the ACH.” The third area seeing increased activity is consumer payments, which were up nearly 6% year-over-year. Together, these three segments have significantly expanded overall ACH volume and reinforced its role in the broader payments landscape. “It's something that's really been built into the economy,” Riley said. “When I think of myself as a consumer working professionally since 1980, I don't think I've seen a physical paycheck since then. One way or another, I'm probably doing seven or eight in or out transactions on ACH just personally in a month, so I can imagine how those numbers stand out.” Growth Across the Board Within each of these segments, new use cases for ACH are continually emerging. For example, in the B2B payments space, ACH is gaining traction in healthcare claim payments—transactions made by health insurance payers to medical providers like hospitals, doctors, and dental practices. This area has seen a year-over-year increase of 10% in ACH usage. “I think there's a pretty clear use case and benefits there for medical providers to get paid electronically, instead of waiting for a check to arrive in the mail,” Herd said. “I think that's a clear benefit where even a standard ACH is a much faster payment than that check that will follow at some future date. We're seeing strong growth there in that B2B vertical.” On the consumer side, the growing popularity of subscription-based services has led to broader adoption of ACH for recurring payments, including bill payments and donations. Consumers also frequently rely on ACH for account transfers, both one-time and recurring. The rise of online bank accounts, digital wallets, and other fintech solutions has further fueled the use of ACH for these types of transfers. Collectively, these segments and use cases also present strong opportunities for the continued growth and adoption of Same Day ACH.

The passage of the GENIUS Act in the U.S. has brought stablecoin interest to a fever pitch in recent months. However, even as more of the world’s leading organizations consider launching stablecoin, the use cases for these fiat-backed assets are still being unlocked. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Nabil Manji, SVP, Head of Fintech Growth and Financial Partnerships at Worldpay, and James Wester, Director of Cryptocurrency and Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, highlighted payouts as one of the most intriguing applications for stablecoins—a model that could offer dramatic benefits for merchants. At the Heart of Dovetailing Trends In addition to regulatory clarity in the U.S., there has been global momentum toward more transparent digital asset regulations. For example, the European Union recently passed its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) legislation. This improved regulated environment has made the space more attractive for both traditional financial institutions and corporates to explore digital assets. These organizations are considering stablecoins for several reasons, including payments, corporate treasury management, and yield generation. The combination of regulatory clarity and institutional interest has dovetailed with broader payments trends to bring stablecoins into the spotlight. “What I think makes the timing almost a perfect storm in a positive way is in many markets around the world, we've had domestic real-time payments,” Manji said. “The big outlier has been the U.S., where up until recently with RTP and FedNow, there hasn't been relatively ubiquitous real-time payments.” “Very quickly, the world's largest economy and the participants in it, are going to grow accustomed to having real-time payments for domestic use cases through those payment rails,” he said. In addition to the surge in real-time payments, cross-border e-commerce has continued to grow significantly, driven by factors like marketplace shopping, the gig economy, and social media commerce. Consumers increasingly expect these trends—real-time payments and cross-border transactions—to converge, and they don’t understand why an adequate solution isn’t yet available. Stablecoins are among the leading contenders to fill this gap because transactions are instant, efficient, and borderless. While their surface-level utility as a digital representation of the U.S. dollar is a game-changer, it’s only the beginning of what the technology can do. “It's becoming clearer, even to savvy payment folks, that it is different from what we have had in the past,” Wester said. “That was one of the misconceptions for a while, it was ‘Don't we already do something like that?’ Well, not really. Once you begin to understand what stablecoins can do in terms of being a programmable digital bearer instrument, that idea becomes very powerful, and people begin to explore what they can do with it.” The Two Lenses While payment acceptance has traditionally taken precedence, payouts are at the heart of many merchants’ business models. These companies are searching for ways to make real-time, inexpensive payouts to beneficiaries, which could include employees, vendors, customers or other third parties. These payouts are often high-frequency and low-value—such as those a marketplace might make to its sellers or a gig company to its workers. They could also include an airline reimbursing a passenger for disrupted travel plans, or an online gaming company paying out winnings to a user. Often, these merchants need to make payout in a relatively high number of currencies and geographies. Additionally, many of the best candidates for stablecoin payouts serve unique customer bases. “You layer on top of that the type of customers of theirs that would want to receive a stablecoin instead of fiat currency,” Manji said. “Then you layer on top the recipients that are in places like countries that have volatile currenci...

One of the most effective tools in the fight against cybercrime is information sharing—particularly through anonymized consortium data signals—a practice increasingly referred to as cyber fusion. Despite its promise, many institutions remain wary of collaborating in this way, often even within their own organizations. Greater cooperation—through shared data and interoperable fraud, anti-money laundering, and cyber tools—not only enhances the ability to detect and prevent financial crime, but also delivers measurable benefits to the bottom line. In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Teresa Walsh, an intelligence professional with over 20 years experience in both the government and financial services sector, and Tracy Goldberg, Director of Cybersecurity at Javelin Strategy & Research, spoke about the advantages of adopting cyber fusion and the key barriers that keep financial institutions from pursuing it more widely. Breaking Down the Silos The financial industry is notorious for operating in silos, with people focused myopically on their own teams’ responsibilities—often without considering how one function impacts another. As organizations network and build stronger internal connections, it becomes clear that no single group holds the complete picture. Combating cybercriminals effectively requires consolidating information and fostering collaboration across functions. Companies approach cyber fusion in different ways. In some cases, it involves integration within the information security department—bringing together not only the cyber threat intelligence team but also incident responders, forensic teams, AML teams, and Financial Intelligence Units. Each of these groups plays a role in the broader effort. “First you have to understand what exactly you're fusing,” said Walsh. “I see an increasingly prominent blurring of lines between what we would define as cybercrime versus nation-state or cyber espionage attacks. We need to get outside the box a little bit and realize that whether it's a scam that's impacted a consumer or a phishing attack that has compromised an employee, all of this ties together. The sooner we can connect those dots and share information across these different industries, the better off we're going to be long-term.” Starting Within the Organization Cyber fusion can start within the organization by cross-sharing information and tools across departments such as AML, communications, and HR. From there, the effort can expand to include cross-industry collaboration and broader information sharing. Cyber fusion should remain fluid. There’s no way to predict what the landscape will look like in five years, so it’s essential to develop a strategy that allows for adaptability and agility. Intelligence needs to be integrated into the process, supporting decision-makers at all levels. It shouldn’t be produced for its own sake—it must serve a clear purpose. “You're trying to deliver intelligence to help people looking at expanding out into a new country or deciding whether or not the technology stack that they currently have is good enough, and you're helping them make those decisions,” said Walsh. “They need objective intelligence that's not just about the technical ones and zeros. Most risk equations are going to talk about the threat that's out there.” “There's a certain threat actor, there's a certain tool that they're using, and it could present a risk to your company,” she said. “What is that and how much exposure do you have? Risk managers need to have good intelligence to help them understand that threat. Analysts try to bring to the table a good understanding of that threat intelligence landscape, helping risk managers decide whether we're doing well, and if not, how can we do better?” Cyber risk goes beyond technology; it also involves the human element, where individuals can be psychologically manipulated. Sourcing threat intelligence experts may require thinking outside the...

Many organizations treat their reconciliation and reporting as mere check-the-box activities, investing only the bare minimum to remain compliant. However, companies that deprioritize these critical back-office functions risk being caught unprepared when faced with a more stringent regulatory environment. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Roger Binks, Chief Commercial Officer at Kani, and James Wester, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, explored the current state of the back office, the challenges organizations face, and how businesses can modernize their reconciliation and reporting functions amid regulatory headwinds. A Traceable and Consistent Baseline Research from Kani found notable trends among payment leaders. Just over a quarter of respondents said their firms were using fully automated tools, while many still relied on spreadsheet-based solutions for this complex process. Nearly two-thirds of respondents also reported frequent data errors during reconciliation—errors that are expected to become more expensive and time-consuming as compliance requirements increase. “The regulatory environment is becoming way more prescriptive than it ever has been,” Binks said. “Reconciliation reporting outputs not only have to be consistent, but they have to be traceable. If you're having a manual process in there, the workarounds that you have to put in place to make that traceability consistent is really tough.” “In the UK, the FCA is extending operational resilience requirements into payments,” he said. “What this means is daily reconciliations, real-time controls, and clearly documented processes are going to be mandatory. They're going to be the sort of baseline of everyone's business.” As compliance tasks continue to grow, they add pressure to already strained operations. The report found that roughly 80% of respondents often miss reporting deadlines. These difficulties will mount for organizations that don’t take steps to modernize. “Things like reconciliation, reporting, compliance, these are things that we all talk about and we have for a long time,” Wester said. “We have talked about workarounds and band-aids and fixes and manual processes that are employed, while we also know that regulatory compliance and all of the things that that entails, it's only getting more complex.” “It's a known issue, we all talk about it, and yet it continues to be something in 2025 that we are still talking about,” he said. “I'm almost sad about it. It's almost like, ‘When do we start fixing some of this stuff, especially when we know that regulation and compliance are not going to get any less complex in the future?’” Saving 700 Hours One reason manual processes and reporting issues have lingered is that they haven’t been a priority for many organizations. “Whenever you see regulation or some type of mandate for the way a report must be submitted—or            anything like that—a financial institution, a bank, or a business, they often look at what they must do and they work back from there,” Wester said. “It's almost as though they try to find the least efficient way to do it. To me, I think we look at it the wrong way.” Instead of viewing compliance as a chore, organizations should recognize that the reporting process produces a critical output: data. Through this lens, reconciliation and reporting become valuable assets—ones that can deliver dividends by offering deep insights into operations. Beyond increased visibility, a modernized reporting process also offers tangible efficiency gains. “We asked some questions around how long it took for people to prepare data—just getting it ready for the reconciliation process,” Binks said. “We found that the average UK payments business spends about three hours preparing data before reconciliations can even happen. With that mandatory daily reconciliation process being a requirement—if you work that out—it's about 700 hours ev...