Quarterly research on the future of payments
Editorially independent reports built for operators, investors, and policy professionals navigating the global shift to cashless commerce.
The Future of Cashless Commerce
A multi-region outlook on the shift to digital value exchange
A synthesis of the structural drivers - infrastructure modernization, biometric authentication, embedded distribution, and AI-driven orchestration - reshaping the global payments stack through 2030.
The State of AI Payments
From fraud detection to agentic commerce
A practitioner-grade map of where AI is creating measurable economic value in the payments stack today, and where the next two years of investment will land.
Global Wallet Adoption Trends
Country-level adoption, regulation, and competitive dynamics
A country-by-country view of wallet adoption, regulatory posture, and competitive structure across advanced and emerging markets.
The Rise of Embedded Finance
Distribution, sponsor banks, and the new revenue stack
A revenue-stack view of embedded finance - who captures value, where the regulatory perimeter sits, and which categories are most attractive to platform builders.
Biometric Payments Outlook
Modalities, regulation, and the privacy frontier
An outlook on biometric authentication in payments - modality adoption, regulatory developments, and the architectural choices that determine privacy posture.
CBDC Adoption Landscape
Wholesale, retail, and cross-border experiments
A taxonomy of the global CBDC landscape across wholesale, retail, and cross-border projects, with implications for commercial banks and payment infrastructure providers.
The Evolution of Payment Infrastructure
Card networks, RTGS, and the ISO 20022 backbone
A practitioner view of how the world's most important payment infrastructures are evolving - and what the next layer of upgrades will look like.
The Modern Fraud Defense Stack
From device intelligence to consortium signals
A layered view of modern fraud defense - what works, what does not, and where the next round of investment will go.
The Real-Time Payments Global Atlas
FedNow, RTP, UPI, Pix, SEPA Inst and the next interconnects
A country-by-country and rail-by-rail view of real-time payment volumes, use-case mix, and emerging interconnect projects.
The Economic Impact of Agentic Commerce
Sizing the next wave of AI-mediated transactions
A bottom-up sizing of the agent-mediated commerce opportunity across consumer replenishment, travel, and B2B procurement, with implications for merchants, issuers, and infrastructure providers.
Stablecoins as Settlement Infrastructure
Regulated dollar and euro stablecoins in the cross-border stack
A practitioner view of where regulated stablecoins now function as settlement infrastructure, the corridors most affected, and the regulatory frame defining the addressable opportunity.
The Global State of Open Banking
From PSD2 to Section 1033 and beyond
A jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction view of open banking regulation, market structure, and the use cases that have actually scaled.
Fraud Economics on Real-Time Rails
Scam fraud, confirmation-of-payee, and the liability frontier
A targeted view of the fraud economics that have emerged on real-time, irrevocable rails and the interventions that actually move the needle.
Issuing in the 2030s
Core, fraud, and program economics
An issuer-side view of the modernization wave: cloud-native processing, AI-driven fraud, and the program-management economics that define profitability.