The Banking View by The Paypers: insights from bank executives on payments and financial crime

The Banking View is an interview series published by The Paypers, a European trade publication covering payments, fintech, and financial services. Each edition features a senior executive from a bank discussing key developments or specific challenges their institution is working through, from rebuilding cross-border payments for real-time rails to governing AI in financial crime compliance.

This page brings every edition together, grouped by topic, with a short summary of what each contributor covers. It is updated each time a new edition is published.

Series author: Oana Ifrim, Lead Writer, The Paypers

Last updated: 08 October 2026

Latest Banking View interview: Commerzbank on trade finance and shifting trade routes

Oliver Haibt, Divisional Board Member, Institutional Clients & Transaction Banking Sales, Commerzbank | 8 October 2026

Trade finance and trade routes: Commerzbank | The Paypers

Oliver Haibt of Commerzbank explains why exporters entering new markets need banks with global correspondent networks and quick, sound risk decisions, after years of de-risking led many banks to cut ties abroad.

About The Banking View interview series

Banks sit at the centre of most conversations about payments modernisation, yet they are not always the ones setting the agenda in industry media. The Banking View gives them that space. Each piece is either a direct interview or an expert article from someone working inside a bank's payments, fraud, compliance or digital assets function.

Contributors so far come from twelve banks: BNY, Citi, Commerzbank, Danske Bank, HSBC, J.P. Morgan Payments, mBank, NatWest Group, Santander Deutschland, Snappi, TD Securities, and UniCredit.

How banks are fighting fraud and financial crime

Bank fraud leaders in The Banking View see data sharing across institutions and sectors as essential, and as one of the hardest parts of fraud prevention to put into practice. Dave Laramy of Danske Bank and Vilém Dědek of mBank both point to the UK's CIFAS database as a working model for sharing fraud intelligence between banks. Susann Gäbler of Openbank Deutschland and Vilém Dědek both see cooperation with telecom providers and online platforms as one of the hardest parts of the new framework to put into practice. Osman Saçarçelik of Commerzbank adds the governance side, arguing that supervisors now expect banks to explain how an AI-supported decision was reached as well as what it concluded.

Dankse Bank on fraud controls with built-in contingencies

Dave Laramy, former Head of Group Fraud, ABC & Tax Evasion, Danske Bank* | 4 March 2026

Fraud defence with built-in contingencies

Dave Laramy, then at Danske Bank, discusses how Fraud-as-a-Service and AI-generated deepfakes have lowered the barrier for criminals, and shares the controls he relies on: releasing new features to employees first so they can try to break them, and building every control with adjustable parameters and an emergency kill switch. He also covers real-time payment interception and why each layer of a fraud strategy needs a contingency ready to deploy.

*Editor's note: at the time of the interview's publication, Dave Laramy was Head of Group Fraud, ABC & Tax Evasion at Danske Bank. He has since left the bank and joined Klarna as Global Head of Fraud.

mBank on why credit fraud goes underreported

Vilém Dědek, Senior Credit Fraud Analyst, mBank (Czech Republic and Slovakia) | 4 May 2026

Why credit fraud often remains below the spotlight

Vilém Dědek of mBank argues that credit fraud is underestimated because much of it is stopped before any money is paid out, and because cases are often written off as bad debt instead of being reported as fraud. Drawing on earlier work in telco fraud and consulting, he discusses the PSR's liability shift and the practical obstacles to sharing data with telecom providers, citing the UK's Scam Signal as an example Europe could learn from.

Commerzbank on governing AI in AML compliance

Osman Saçarçelik, Global Head of Global Standards, Advisory & Governance for AML/CTF, Commerzbank | 8 September 2026

AI, risk and trust: leadership and compliance in the future of banking

Osman Saçarçelik of Commerzbank explains why the most realistic uses of GenAI in AML/CTF compliance sit in preparatory work, where subject matter experts stay accountable for the outcome. He describes how the EU AML Regulation pushes banks towards data-centric compliance, and how a large bank can build a maker culture safely, for example by running AI models in shadow mode alongside existing processes before they touch live cases.

Santander Deutschland on fraud prevention across the payment journey

Susann Gäbler, Head of Risk Steering Fraud, Santander Deutschland | 9 September 2026

Securing the whole payment journey: fraud prevention in the PSD3/PSR era

Susann Gäbler of Openbank Deutschland explains how Strong Customer Authentication under PSD2 secured the approval step, while social engineering now requires banks to protect the full payment lifecycle. Her priorities for the next 24 months are real-time monitoring of outgoing and incoming payments and the foundations for cross-industry fraud intelligence sharing. She also works through the tension between the PSR's behavioural monitoring requirements and GDPR.

How banks are preparing for PSD3, the PSR, and the digital euro

Banks in The Banking view series expect PSD3 and PSR to modernise existing rules, with the biggest practical changes coming in fraud liability and payment monitoring. Andrea Monteleone of J.P. Morgan Payments describes PSD3 and the PSR as a modernisation of existing rules and sees Verification of Payee as an obligation banks can build commercial fraud services on. Susann Gäbler of Openbank Deutschland argues the PSR extends fraud prevention to the whole payment journey, and names real-time monitoring of incoming payments as the hardest capability to build. Vilém Dědek of mBank identifies expanded fraud liability as the biggest change from PSD2, while noting that detailed requirements are still being finalised. Dave Laramy of Danske Bank expects fraud data-sharing frameworks to grow with support from the PSR, and Ajay Krishna of UniCredit examines how PSR rules on account access interact with the digital euro.

J.P. Morgan Payments on what PSD3 and the PSR change for banks

Andrea Monteleone, Executive Director, EMEA Payments Industry Advocacy, J.P. Morgan Payments | 2 April 2026

PSD3 and PSR: evolution, not disruption

Andrea Monteleone of J.P. Morgan Payments explains why the bank sees Europe's new payments framework as a modernisation of existing rules. He covers the harmonisation gains of a directly applicable regulation and the limits of payments law when scams begin in other channels. He also argues that wider access for non-banks is more likely to deepen bank partnerships than to replace them.

UniCredit on connecting the digital euro to Open Banking infrastructure

Ajay Krishna, Product Manager, Digital - Open Banking Operations, UniCredit | 6 August 2026

Open Banking and the digital euro: how far does the shared standards layer actually reach?

Ajay Krishna of UniCredit, who runs the bank's Open Banking platform across nine European markets, examines how much interoperability the ECB's reuse of existing standards actually delivers for the digital euro. He separates what banks can extend from their current API and authentication stack from what must be built from scratch, such as settlement and holding-limit logic. He also works through the unresolved question of third-party access and the central fraud risk score in version 0.91 of the digital euro rulebook. 

How banks are modernising cross-border and real-time payments

Banks in The Banking View series treat faster cross-border payments as an infrastructure and data problem, and warn that slow modernisation puts the client relationship at risk. Bana Akkad Azhari of BNY argues that resilience across multiple rails has to be proven before banks optimise for cost, while Ajin Krishnan of Citi shows how Australia's New Payments Platform now extends instant settlement to inbound cross-border payments. Andrew Breslin and Anthony Zheng of TD Securities add the commercial stakes, warning that banks which delay modernisation could keep processing the final leg of a payment while losing the client relationship around it. Oliver Haibt of Commerzbank adds the trade finance view: years of de-risking have thinned correspondent networks just as exporters need partners in new markets, which puts a premium on banks that can assess bank and country risk quickly.

BNY on rebuilding cross-border payments for multiple rails

Bana Akkad Azhari, Head of EMEA, Global Payments & Trade, BNY | 9 March 2026

How banks are rebuilding cross-border payments for the real-time, multi-rail era

Bana Akkad Azhari of BNY explains how the bank is upgrading its cross-border and treasury systems so each payment can run in real time over the most suitable rail. She argues that interoperability between legacy methods and newer options such as tokenized deposits and stablecoins is the precondition for scale. She also describes how BNY's AI platform, Eliza, is used to repair payment exceptions.

Citi on lessons from Australia's real-time payments platform

Ajin Krishnan, Head of Payments, Australia and New Zealand, Citi | 10 June 2026

Money never sleeps: Australia's bet on always-on finance

Ajin Krishnan of Citi uses Australia's New Payments Platform as a case study for payment leaders elsewhere. He explains how PayTo gives customers direct control over who can debit their accounts, and how instant settlement improves working capital for businesses. He also shows how Australia's AML/CTF reforms are pushing payment flows off the legacy BECS system onto modern rails.

TD Securities on why banks need to modernise cross-border payments now

Andrew Breslin, Vice President, Institutional Clearing EMEA, and Anthony Zheng, Director, Head of Institutional Clearing, TD Securities | 25 September 2026

The great cross-border payments reset: why banks must move now

Andrew Breslin and Anthony Zheng of TD Securities argue that the biggest risk banks face in cross-border payments is losing ownership of the client relationship to fintechs and payment specialists. They set out how banks can respond through partnerships and better use of ISO 20022 data, citing TD's role as a gateway intermediary into Canada in the Swift payments scheme. They also focus on the last mile, the stretch between a payment reaching the beneficiary bank and landing in the end account, where most of the delay now sits.

Commerzbank on trade finance and correspondent banking networks

Oliver Haibt, Divisional Board Member, Institutional Clients & Transaction Banking Sales, Commerzbank | 8 October 2026

Trade finance and trade routes: Commerzbank | The Paypers

Oliver Haibt of Commerzbank, which facilitates around 30% of Germany's foreign trade, explains how correspondent banking and trade finance are adapting as companies reconfigure supply chains towards new markets in Asia-Pacific and South America. He argues that years of de-risking have left many banks without partners abroad, and that banks' value now lies in assessing bank and country risk quickly. He also describes Commerzbank's move to electronic document presentation under eUCP and AI-based compliance checks.

How banks are using ISO 20022 payments data

HSBC's contributors to The Banking View series see richer ISO 20022 data as the source of fewer payment repairs for banks and faster reconciliation for corporate treasurers, and they approach that shift from two sides. Hema Iyengar looks at how structured ISO 20022 data will survive the full correspondent banking chain in 2026, cutting repairs and manual investigations. Mark Evans looks at what that richer data means for corporate treasurers, who can use it to track performance and automate reconciliation.

HSBC on why 2026 may be a turning point for ISO 20022

Hema Iyengar, Director of Payment Programs, Global Payments Solutions, HSBC | 24 April 2026

ISO 20022: why 2026 may be the real inflection point

Hema Iyengar of HSBC traces how ISO 20022 moved from a coexistence phase to native, end-to-end processing, with 2026 as the year structured and hybrid address data starts surviving the whole correspondent chain. She sets out the practical payoff for corporates, such as automated reconciliation and intraday liquidity visibility, and for banks, such as fewer repairs and higher straight-through processing. She also flags change management as the lever institutions tend to overlook.

HSBC on payments data as treasury's next advantage

Mark Evans, Global Head of Payment Products, Global Payment Solutions, HSBC | 28 July 2026

Why treasury's next competitive advantage will be in payments data

Mark Evans of HSBC draws on the bank's Global Payment Trends Report 2026 to argue that treasury's next advantage lies in the data each payment carries. He covers ISO 20022, tokenization, agentic commerce and cross-border real-time payments. He then gives treasurers concrete steps, from embedding payments in core systems to tracking KPIs such as straight-through processing rates.

Where banks fit in Banking-as-a-Service and digital assets

Banks in The Banking View series see regulatory experience and customer trust as what keeps them central, whether they provide infrastructure to fintechs or issue tokenized deposits. Christine O'Reilly-Stewart of BNY and Lee McNabb of NatWest Group both look at where banks fit as new models emerge around them. Both see regulatory experience and customer trust as the assets that keep banks central, whether they are providing infrastructure to fintechs or issuing tokenized deposits.

BNY on the bank's role in Banking-as-a-Service partnerships

Christine O'Reilly-Stewart, Director, Product Management, Banking-as-a-Service, BNY | 11 February 2026

Why banks still matter: navigating innovation and trust in a changing financial landscape

Christine O'Reilly-Stewart of BNY examines what role incumbent banks play as fintechs and newly chartered US banks multiply, with Banking-as-a-Service as her answer. She sets out how BaaS partners should divide responsibilities, with the bank carrying compliance and payments infrastructure while the fintech builds the customer experience. She argues that alignment on values and risk appetite has to happen well before any contract is signed.

NatWest Group on why tokenized deposits suit commercial banks

Lee McNabb, Head of Digital Assets, NatWest Group | 23 July 2026

The rise of digital assets in payments and financial services

In this video interview, Lee McNabb of NatWest Group explains how tokenized deposits differ from stablecoins and CBDCs, and why he expects the three to coexist. He sees tokenized deposits as the most natural fit for commercial banks and argues that adoption will depend on clear regulation and common standards, along with close collaboration between commercial and central banks.

How digital banks are competing with established banks

Gabriella Kindert of Snappi, Greece's first ECB-licensed neobank, expects customers to keep spreading their finances across several providers, with digital banks earning a place as a second bank before competing for the primary relationship. She argues that this trust comes from dependable service and sound risk management, which take far longer to build than an app.

Snappi on building a digital bank in Greece

Gabriella Kindert, CEO, Snappi | 7 October 2026

From history to high-tech banking: building businesses – and banks – that scale

Gabriella Kindert of Snappi describes how Greek customers have moved quickly to cards and banking apps, while investing and long-term financial planning still lag behind everyday payments. She sees AI improving the quality and consistency of credit assessments, which could widen access to credit for customers that conventional processes miss, provided decisions stay explainable and open to challenge. She also makes the case for Greece building banking ideas that can influence the rest of Europe.

Payments and fraud figures cited in by bank executives

• EUR 4.2 billion: payment fraud in the European Economic Area in 2024, a 17% increase year on year, cited by Andrea Monteleone of J.P. Morgan Payments.
• 1.8 billion: approximate annual transactions on Australia's New Payments Platform by late 2025, up nearly 14% year on year, cited by Ajin Krishnan of Citi.
• About one third: the share of European credit transfers now made as instant payments, according to ECB data cited by Susann Gäbler of Openbank Deutschland.
• 36: the number of digital euro pilot providers the ECB named in July 2026, with the pilot running from the second half of 2027, cited by Ajay Krishna of UniCredit.
• USD 85.73 billion: the projected size of the Banking-as-a-Service market by 2032, up from USD 21.27 billion in 2023, cited by Christine O'Reilly-Stewart of BNY from SNS Insider research.
• More than 80%: the share of an average cross-border payment's end-to-end journey spent in the last mile, between arrival at the beneficiary bank and credit to the end account, according to Swift data cited by Andrew Breslin and Anthony Zheng of TD Securities.
• About 30%: the share of Germany's foreign trade that Commerzbank facilitates, cited by Oliver Haibt of Commerzbank.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Banking View?

The Banking View is an interview series published by The Paypers in which senior bank executives discuss specific challenges in payments, fraud prevention and regulation. This page lists every edition published so far.

Which banks have contributed to The Banking View?

Contributors so far come from BNY, Citi, Commerzbank, Danske Bank, HSBC, J.P. Morgan Payments, mBank, NatWest Group, Santander Deutschland, Snappi, TD Securities, and UniCredit.

Which Banking View editions cover PSD3 and the PSR?

The interviews with J.P. Morgan Payments, Santander Deutschland, mBank, and UniCredit address PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation directly. The Danske Bank interview discusses fraud data sharing under the PSR.

Does The Banking View only cover European banks?

Most contributors work at European banks, but the series also includes Citi on real-time payments in Australia and New Zealand, BNY on the US banking charter environment, and TD Securities, part of Canada's TD Bank Group, on cross-border clearing.

How can a bank take part in The Banking View?

Reach out to Oana Ifrim.

How are banks preparing for the PSR's fraud liability rules?

Banks in The Banking View are focusing on real-time monitoring and fraud data sharing. Susann Gäbler of Santander Deutschland prioritises real-time monitoring of both outgoing and incoming payments, while Vilém Dědek of mBank identifies the expanded liability for fraud as the biggest change from PSD2 and sees data sharing with telecom providers as a key obstacle.

What do banks think about the digital euro?

Ajay Krishna of UniCredit finds that banks can extend much of their existing Open Banking API and authentication infrastructure to the digital euro, while settlement and holding-limit logic will have to be built from scratch. He also highlights unresolved questions around third-party access and the central fraud risk score in version 0.91 of the rulebook.

How are banks using AI in financial crime compliance?

Osman Saçarçelik of Commerzbank sees the most realistic uses of generative AI in preparatory compliance work, with experts remaining accountable for decisions. Bana Akkad Azhari of BNY describes how the bank's AI platform, Eliza, is used to repair payment exceptions, and Dave Laramy, then at Danske Bank, describes AI-generated deepfakes as a threat fraud controls now have to account for.

How are banks using AI in lending decisions?

Gabriella Kindert of Snappi sees AI improving the quality and consistency of credit assessments, which could widen access to credit for people whose full financial picture conventional processes miss. She argues that customers will only trust these decisions if they can be explained and challenged, with human judgement kept for responsibility and context.

How are banks supporting exporters as trade routes shift?

Oliver Haibt of Commerzbank argues that exporters entering new markets need banks that combine global correspondent networks with quick, well-founded decisions on bank and country risk, after years of de-risking led many banks to cut relationships abroad. He also sees digital trade documents under eUCP and AI-based compliance checks making trade finance easier to adapt as supply chains change.

How do banks see tokenized deposits compared with stablecoins?

Lee McNabb of NatWest Group expects tokenized deposits, stablecoins and CBDCs to coexist, with tokenized deposits the most natural fit for commercial banks. Bana Akkad Azhari of BNY sees interoperability between legacy payment methods and newer options such as tokenized deposits and stablecoins as the precondition for scale.

About The Paypers

The Paypers is an independent source of news and analysis on payments, fintech, Open Banking, stablecoins and cross-border payments, based in Europe and read by professionals across the global payments industry.

This page is updated with a new entry each time a Banking View edition is published.

About the author

Oana Ifrim is Lead Writer at The Paypers.  After more than a decade at The Paypers, Oana has built a pretty good sense of what’s happening across banking and fintech, with a strong network of industry insiders across payments, digital innovation, regulation, fraud, and financial crime. She mixes content strategy, trend spotting, a (slightly obsessive) love of research, expert conversations, and a big dose of curiosity to turn complex industry shifts into engaging stories and thought leadership that bring a little life to the industry’s biggest conversations.

More recently, she has been deeply dedicated to The Banking View, an exclusive series bringing direct perspectives from banking leaders on how they’re navigating payments modernisation, fraud and financial crime, regulation, and innovation. 

When Oana is out of office, you’ll probably find her singing, reading, cooking with her family, getting happily lost in detective and mystery shows, or exploring every forest she can find with her husband and daughter.

If you’d like to exchange ideas, explore content opportunities, or there’s an industry topic you’d love to dig into, reach out to her at: oana@thepaypers.com or on LinkedIn.