Payment infrastructure

PYMNTSVisaWatchIndependent report

PYMNTS reports on Visa's U.S. Trust Index for agentic commerce. Visa says 72% of surveyed consumers had used an AI assistant, while 23% trusted generative AI to handle payment transactions on their behalf. When asked about payment brands, 61% said they would trust Visa to handle agentic transactions. The survey was conducted for Visa by Harris Poll from May 26-28, 2026 among 2,065 U.S. adults matched to Census benchmarks; the payment-brand question used roughly half of that sample per brand tested.

Finextra — PaymentsPhonePe / VisaMaterial changeSecondary report

PhonePe and Visa announced three cardless payment tools at Global Fintech Fest 2026. Tap to Pay is rolling out in phases from September 9 for Android users with tokenized Visa cards. Cross Border Scan to Pay is intended to let Indian travelers scan Visa-supported QR codes in 14 international markets, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan, China and South Korea, but PhonePe says that feature will reach users soon. Smart Accept is intended to let micro-merchants accept physical cards or tokenized wallets directly on a smartphone without separate POS hardware.

PYMNTSMastercardMaterial changeIndependent report

PYMNTS reports that Mastercard introduced Agent Connect, a single integration intended to link participating merchants, AI agents, digital platforms and payment providers, while expanding Agent Suite for Merchants. Mastercard says participating agents can discover merchant-supplied catalog data, recommend carts with final pricing and fulfillment details, and complete consumer-authorized transactions using secure credentials from any network. Merchants retain controls over participating AI experiences, pricing, fulfillment, customer relationships and business rules.

Digital TransactionsBVNK / MarqetaHigh impactIndependent report

Digital Transactions reports that BVNK and Marqeta announced an integration intended to let Marqeta customers embed U.S.-dollar stablecoin capabilities into cards, wallets and other financial products. The companies say the combination will connect stablecoin balances to standard payment cards accepted at millions of merchants and support round-the-clock settlement alongside fiat options. BVNK supplies stablecoin payment infrastructure and Marqeta supplies card issuing and processing capabilities.

PYMNTSInternational Finance Corporation / Mastercard / VisaHigh impactIndependent report

PYMNTS reports that the World Bank Group's International Finance Corporation launched a risk-sharing initiative that will initially provide up to USD 700 million in guarantees covering part of participating institutions' credit-settlement risk. Mastercard announced a USD 500 million facility, while Visa said its arrangement with IFC is expected to support about USD 200 million of risk sharing over five years. The program is intended to help banks, fintechs and other institutions in emerging markets connect more consumers and small businesses to digital payments.

CoinDeskU.S. Bank / Stellar Development FoundationMaterial changeIndependent report

CoinDesk reports that U.S. Bank completed a live pilot payment between its own North American and European entities using USBDC, its proprietary U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, on the public Stellar blockchain. The bank says the pilot integrated with its finance, risk, compliance and operations systems and tested minting, payment redemption, freezing and clawback through its internally developed Digital Asset Platform.

Finextra — PaymentsIXOPAYHigh impactSecondary report

An IXOPAY announcement republished by Finextra launches an Agentic Suite with three components: Payment Agent connects agentic shopping experiences to existing payment infrastructure without committing merchants to one protocol; Universal Tokens retain agent identity, customer consent and purchase intent alongside the payment credential; and an MCP Server gives approved AI assistants governed access to supported payment and tokenization functions while enforcing existing permissions, isolating credentials and logging actions.

The PaypersVisa / Credit CoopHigh impactIndependent report

The Paypers reports that Visa is combining customer-authorized VisaNet settlement data with onchain transaction records so lenders can assess and finance working-capital needs for stablecoin-linked card programs. Visa identifies Credit Coop as an early implementation: smart contracts automate funding, collateral management and repayment for settlement obligations. Visa says participating facilities have financed more than USD 2.5 billion of cumulative settlement volume since 2023 with zero defaults.

The PaypersAvolta / DevelopXMaterial changeIndependent report

The Paypers reports that Avolta and DevelopX opened a stablecoin checkout pilot at Avolta's Level 2 Duty Free store at Zurich Airport. Avolta's primary release says the pilot runs from September 9 through September 25, 2026 and lets travelers scan a QR code to pay directly from a digital wallet, with funds transferred to the merchant within seconds without a card network or intermediary payment provider. DevelopX identifies USDC and the Base blockchain as the implementation used in the pilot.

Finextra — PaymentsL&T Finance / Pine LabsMaterial changeSecondary report

An L&T Finance and Pine Labs announcement republished by Finextra says the companies will integrate an Agentic Storefront into L&T Finance's PLANET app. Flight-ticket booking is the first announced use case. Pine Labs says its P3P and Grantex framework is intended to let buyer and seller agents execute transactions within user-defined mandates and guardrails, moving the app beyond conversational assistance toward transaction fulfilment.

TechCabaldLocal Ghana / Bank of GhanaHigh impactIndependent report

TechCabal reports that dLocal's Ghanaian subsidiary obtained an Enhanced Payment Service Provider licence from the Bank of Ghana. The licence permits local payment collection, merchant acquiring, mobile-money acceptance, bank-transfer collection and local payouts to bank accounts and mobile-money wallets. The Bank of Ghana's current licensed-provider register independently lists Dlocal in the PSP Enhanced category.

Finextra — PaymentsTerraPay / Alipay+Material changeSecondary report

A TerraPay announcement republished by Finextra says the company has partnered with Alipay+ to extend Xend from account-to-account transfers to cross-border in-store QR acceptance. In the announced initial phase, 15 Africa-connected digital wallets will be able to pay at more than 150 million merchants in the Alipay+ ecosystem. Alipay+ says its broader network connects more than 50 international payment partners across 220 destination markets and more than 10 national payment systems.

Finextra — PaymentsMADFIN / Tribe PaymentsHigh impactSecondary report

A company announcement republished by Finextra says Tribe Payments is supplying MADFIN with processing-centre services and a merchant plug-in for 3-D Secure authentication, supporting authorization, clearing, fraud controls and card-scheme compliance for MADFIN's U.K. acquiring operation. MADFIN says its Mastercard integration took under two months, Visa onboarding followed within a year, and volume processed through Tribe has grown by an average of 20% month over month since launch.

The PaypersAlipay+ / UPI / IndiaMaterial changeIndependent report

The Paypers, citing Reuters reporting based on three people familiar with the discussions, says India has stalled an Alipay+ proposal submitted in January 2026 to connect with UPI for cross-border payments. The reported first phase would have let Indian travelers use the linkage across Alipay+'s network in China, Hong Kong and other Asian markets; a second phase would have enabled international visitors to pay through Alipay+ in India. The cited concerns include Chinese ownership links, customer-data storage and handling, money laundering, cyberfraud and broader political grounds.

PYMNTSBlock / Builders Bank & TrustHigh impactIndependent report

PYMNTS reports that Block submitted an application to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Builders Bank & Trust, N.A. If approved, the uninsured national trust bank would provide custody and related fiduciary services, including for bitcoin and stablecoins, under a federal supervisory framework. Block says it would not accept deposits or make loans and would be led by digital-asset executive Lee Woolley.

PYMNTSHumboldt Merchant Services / Federal Trade CommissionHigh impactIndependent report

PYMNTS reports that the Federal Trade Commission's proposed settlement would require Humboldt Merchant Services to pay $12 million and permanently bar it from processing for heightened-risk merchants. The FTC complaint alleges Humboldt processed payments for more than 1,000 shell merchants and allowed chargeback rates approaching ten times card-network excessive-chargeback thresholds. Humboldt says the conduct largely involved third-party agents and former leadership from 2021 to 2023, denies wrongdoing, and says it has strengthened compliance.

CoinDeskVisa / Credit Coop / RainHigh impactIndependent report

CoinDesk reports that Visa is making VisaNet settlement data available to blockchain lenders so they can assess and finance the daily prefunding needs of stablecoin-linked card issuers. Visa's primary article says its network had more than 160 such card programs in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, with payment volume up nearly 200% year over year and annualised settlement volume above USD 20 billion. It also says Credit Coop has financed more than USD 2.5 billion since 2023 across more than 3,000 borrows and 9,000 repayments, with no defaults reported, and names Rain as one issuer using the mechanism.

Rain via PR NewswireRainMaterial changeSecondary report

Rain says select beta partners can now fund payouts from stablecoin balances and deliver local currency to recipients' bank accounts through licensed partners in more than 80 countries and 50 currencies. The company says the capability supports B2B, B2C, C2C and C2B flows for marketplaces, contractor platforms, neobanks and businesses, with broader availability planned over the coming months.

PYMNTSCircle / TazapayHigh impactIndependent report

PYMNTS reports, and Circle's September 8 SEC filings confirm, that Circle signed a definitive agreement to acquire Singapore-based Tazapay for USD 400 million in Circle stock. The number of shares will be calculated from Circle's volume-weighted average closing price during the 20 trading days before closing. Circle expects the transaction to close in 2027, subject to customary conditions and approval by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Circle says Tazapay serves more than 60 bank and fintech partners, supports payouts to more than 100 markets and processed more than USD 25 billion in annualised payment volume as of July 31, 2026, with stablecoins involved in about 60% of transaction volume.

Payments DiveNuvei / Federal Trade CommissionHigh impactIndependent report

Payments Dive reports that Nuvei agreed to pay $4.85 million under a proposed Federal Trade Commission settlement and accept tighter merchant-screening and monitoring duties. The FTC alleges that Nuvei processed more than $30 million for Reimage between 2017 and 2023 despite warning signs and Visa's 2020 notice. Nuvei neither admits nor denies the allegations and says the five former accounts at issue represented less than 0.011% of its volume across more than 150,000 merchants; the report says the company has strengthened compliance.

Payments DiveThe Clearing House / Federal ReserveHigh impactIndependent report

Payments Dive compares the established U.S. instant-payment networks using a Richmond Fed report and Clearing House comments. FedNow had 1,725 participating banks and credit unions, while the report counted 1,193 on RTP and The Clearing House supplied a newer figure of 1,350. Despite that participation gap, RTP processed about 142 million transactions in the second quarter versus roughly 5 million on FedNow. Both networks operate continuously with a $10 million transaction limit, but RTP uses a prefunded joint account while FedNow settles through Federal Reserve master accounts.

ChainITChainITHigh impactSecondary report

ChainIT published a technical whitepaper describing a proposed 'Provable Compliance' protocol for evaluating whether a person, organization, workflow or AI agent may perform a specific transaction at runtime. The design uses Verifiable Decision Transactions and signed decision dispositions so authorized parties can verify which evidence and policy produced an allow, deny or escalation result without receiving data they are not entitled to see. ChainIT explicitly says the framework does not replace regulated AML/CFT programs or provide a universal legal determination.

CoinDeskSouth Korea National Assembly Budget OfficeHigh impactIndependent report

CoinDesk reports on a September 8 analysis by South Korea's National Assembly Budget Office. The official release estimates that won-stablecoin substitution could reduce annual merchant payment fees by KRW 0.37 trillion to KRW 5.15 trillion, approximately USD 275 million to USD 3.8 billion, depending on substitution and fee assumptions. The office says current links between domestic dollar-stablecoin trading and conventional markets remain limited, while wider adoption could increase risks to bank intermediation, monetary policy and peg stability.

Finextra — PaymentsAcquired / Quint GroupHigh impactSecondary report

Acquired announced Acquired Billing, a recurring-payment engine that combines plan configuration, payment acceptance, failed-payment recovery and retention workflows through one integration. The company says merchants can configure subscription plans, start dates, billing intervals, trials and discounts, and connect the service with cards, Direct Debit, Open Banking, Pay by Bank and variable recurring payments through its broader Acquired platform.

PYMNTSU.S. financial institutions / The Clearing House RTPMaterial changeIndependent report

A PYMNTS Intelligence report produced with The Clearing House says 76% of surveyed U.S. financial institutions already provide access to the RTP network and 92% of those not yet enabled expect to do so within two years. Respondents cited manual processes (53%), legacy technology (52%) and siloed systems (47%) as modernisation obstacles; 35% said they were adding centralised payment hubs and 32% rail-specific processing tools.

PYMNTSMerchants / Visa Acceptance SolutionsMaterial changeIndependent report

PYMNTS Intelligence research produced with Visa Acceptance Solutions combines surveys of 1,185 merchants, 5,241 consumers and 150 acquirers in the United States, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates. It says 46% of merchants were least willing to cede pricing decisions to AI agents, 42% cited fraud, disputes and liability, and 41% cited redirection away from their own channels. The article also reports that 48% of consumers had used AI for product research, while 23% of merchants could identify AI-originated traffic and purchases and 15% had structured agent-readable product data.

PYMNTSDBS / Citi / SwiftMaterial changeIndependent report

PYMNTS reports, and DBS's September 7 announcement confirms, that DBS and Citi's New York office completed the first successful Singapore-to-U.S. dollar payment conducted over a weekend. The September 5 transaction used tokenised deposits on the Swift Digital Ledger and took minutes, compared with the announcement's stated industry norm of up to two business days for cross-border payments. DBS says the capability lets participating institutions move U.S. dollars outside normal banking hours; the release also cites a forecast that Asia's outbound cross-border payments could rise from USD 13.5 trillion in 2025 to USD 24 trillion by 2033.

Finextra — PaymentsCONCRYTHigh impactSecondary report

CONCRYT says it has deployed an agentic AI monitoring system across all of its live payment traffic for eight months, covering more than three million transactions. The system uses about 100 rules, some running once per minute, to monitor traffic, financial performance, operational limits, merchant activity and approval rates. It alerts operations staff to unexpected changes and recommends alternative routing, while human operators retain final control and make routing adjustments. The company also reports more than 2,000 staff conversations with the assistant during 2026 through its admin panel, Slack and Telegram.

CoinDeskBanks / stablecoin wallet providersMaterial changeIndependent report

CoinDesk reports that stablecoin wallets are challenging banks' role as the default interface for holding and moving money because they can operate around the clock and across borders. Interviewed executives disagreed on the end state: Eco and RedStone executives argued that wallets could take payment-interface share, while Fireblocks and BitGo executives expected banks to retain custody, compliance, savings and credit roles and to add tokenised deposits or stablecoin services. The article cites a BVNK survey claim that 77% of crypto users would prefer to open a stablecoin wallet through an existing bank or fintech rather than self-custody.

FeedzaiIT Smart Systems / FeedzaiMaterial changeIndependent report

IT Smart Systems and Feedzai announced a strategic partnership under which ITSS will add Feedzai's RiskOps fraud-detection and anti-money-laundering capabilities to its digital-banking and payment-integration portfolio. The companies say the integration can cover onboarding, omnichannel payments, SEPA flows, transaction monitoring and KYC/AML, with an initial distribution focus on Romania and the wider Central and Eastern European region.

PYMNTSU.S. CongressWatchIndependent report

PYMNTS reports that House leaders removed the final two voting weeks of September, leaving the chamber scheduled to depart on September 17. Official Senate scheduling records say the cloture motion on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, is due to ripen at 2:15 p.m. on September 15. That is a procedural vote to begin consideration, not final Senate passage or enactment; if the Senate changes the House-passed text, both chambers would still have to approve identical legislation.

MastercardMastercard / FlowcartHigh impactIndependent report

Mastercard and Flowcart announced a collaboration to embed card payments in social and conversational-commerce journeys. The companies say the initiative is launching first in Kenya and is intended to expand across East Africa and later to South Africa, Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire and other pan-African markets. Payment options inside chat can use embedded links, QR codes or native checkout flows through Mastercard Gateway and acquiring partners, while tokenised card details can support repeat purchases.

CoinDeskLiquid Network / Blockstream / SideSwapHigh impactIndependent report

CoinDesk reports that Liquid Network paused new transactions after purported white-hat hackers withdrew roughly 4,000 of the approximately 4,200 BTC held in its federation wallet, worth about USD 320 million at the time. Blockstream attributed the incident to a bug in the Elements software rather than compromised keys, and the funds moved through SideSwap's authorised peg-out path. The party controlling the bitcoin said it would return the funds after the vulnerability was fixed, but Liquid had not announced a reopening time or confirmed a return by the article's latest update.

Finextra — PaymentsNexi / JCB / UnionPay InternationalMaterial changeSecondary report

A Nexi announcement republished by Finextra says the company signed separate partnerships with JCB and UnionPay International to add both card schemes to the Consorzio Unico Campania Tap & Go network. Nexi says eligible cardholders, particularly visitors from Asia, will be able to tap contactless cards or phones on participating metro, funicular and bus services, with automatic best-fare calculation.

PYMNTSYuno / Revolut BusinessHigh impactIndependent report

PYMNTS reports that Yuno and Revolut Business integrated Revolut Pay's biometric one-click checkout, Revolut acquiring and gateway services into one Yuno connection. Yuno's primary announcement says the services are available to eligible Yuno merchants in the UK, European Economic Area, Singapore and Australia; the first merchants have signed up, and one unnamed online travel agency has activated Revolut Pay without a new integration build.

PYMNTSEuropean Central Bank / Central Bank of BrazilHigh impactIndependent report

PYMNTS reports, citing Reuters, that the European Central Bank confirmed a preliminary investigation into a possible interlinking of its TARGET Instant Payment Settlement platform with Brazil's Pix system. Reuters said technical teams are assessing feasibility, Brazil's central bank declined to comment, and one unnamed source said a pilot could be launched in 2028 if the initiative advances.

Finextra — PaymentsPaymentology / MaximMaterial changeSecondary report

A Paymentology announcement republished by Finextra says the issuer processor is supporting Maxim's new U.K. credit-card programme for Africans living across borders. Maxim marked the launch on August 27 and is initially focusing on the Nigerian diaspora; Paymentology supplies the cloud-native processing layer, while Maxim says its wider proposition will connect U.K. credit-building with services used across the U.K. and Nigeria.

Finextra — PaymentsAnt International / AntomHigh impactSecondary report

An Ant International announcement republished by Finextra says the Central Bank of Brazil granted the company a Payment Institution licence. Ant says the licence builds on Antom's existing merchant acceptance of Pix, cards and alternative payment methods and will support broader local and cross-border payment and account services for enterprises, platforms and small and medium-sized businesses in Brazil.

Digital TransactionsGlobant / Erin StillwellHigh impactIndependent report

In a Digital Transactions commentary, Globant payments executive Erin Stillwell argues that stablecoins can complement existing rails for merchant and worker payouts, cross-border settlement and liquidity management. She cites DoorDash's stated plan to use stablecoins for faster payouts and a Globant client project involving stablecoin payouts to agricultural producers, while recommending narrow pilots and integration with existing payment experiences.

PYMNTSBottomline / ChainlinkHigh impactIndependent report

PYMNTS reports that Bottomline partnered with Chainlink to connect Bottomline's existing payment software with public and private blockchains. The announced design keeps ISO 20022 messaging in place while Chainlink's CCIP moves tokenized value between chains and its Runtime Environment coordinates workflows. The cited 600-plus banks are Bottomline customers that could receive access, not banks confirmed to have adopted or used the integration.