[Payments Unleashed] Video interview with Anthony Davis, IBM

Anthony Davis, Program Director of the ISV Partner Ecosystem, reveals how IBM and ACI are transforming global payment security, setting new standards for the industry.

At the recent Payments Unleashed Summit in New York, hosted by ACI Worldwide, industry leaders gathered to discuss the future of global payments. In an exclusive interview with Mélisande Mual, Publisher of The Paypers, Anthony Davis from IBM's ISV acceleration team shared insights on how strategic partnerships and advanced technology are reshaping the payments landscape. The conversation revealed surprising truths about the continued role of mainframes in banking and the vital role AI plays in fighting increasingly sophisticated fraud.

The power of strategic partnerships

The long-standing collaboration between IBM and ACI Worldwide is one of the most impactful in the payments industry. Anthony highlighted that approximately 70% of the world’s transactional workloads by volume–including critical applications for top airlines, retailers, banks, and government agencies–run on IBM mainframes. Also, 43 of the world’s top 50 banks and 8 of the top 10 payment companies relying on mainframes as their core computing platform. At the same time, ACI supports 19 of the top 20 payment processors worldwide. This partnership lets both companies bring their strengths together to meet the changing needs of financial institutions. As payments get more complex, working closely like this is key to creating innovative solutions that keep up with what customers expect.

The digital payment shift

Anthony shared a striking example from a recent visit to a leading bank in Asia Pacific, where he observed fewer ATMs and almost no lines–signalling a sharp decline in cash use. This aligns with insights from the summit’s keynote, emphasising growing consumer expectations for innovative payment options and the need for banks to differentiate themselves through technology.

AI: the frontline against fraud

One of the biggest challenges today is fraud, and AI is at the center of the battle. While financial institutions use AI to detect fraud, criminals are also leveraging the technology, including deepfakes, to execute sophisticated attacks. IBM’s solution is the z17 platform, launched earlier this year. This advanced mainframe features built-in AI acceleration, allowing banks to embed fraud detection models directly into core systems–closing critical security gaps that many institutions still face despite existing solutions.

Looking ahead

Mainframes still power 70% of global payments, showing they remain vital. Cash use is dropping fast, especially in Asia Pacific, as digital payments rise. Partnerships like IBM and ACI’s are crucial for driving innovation in a complex industry. AI is both a threat and a tool in fraud prevention, with integrating AI directly into banking systems being a key step forward.

Looking ahead, platforms like IBM’s z17 prove that traditional infrastructure can evolve with AI to meet today’s challenges. As fraud grows more advanced and digital payments become standard, strong collaborations will be essential to build secure, efficient, and customer-focused payment solutions for a digital-first future.

About Anthony Davis

 

Anthony is Group Manager for the Z ISV Acceleration team at IBM, based in Dallas. Anthony’s team cover the most critical ISV partnerships for IBM, such as the partnership with ACI. Prior to IBM, Anthony served as SVP of Virtualization, IAAS and High-Performance Computing at a top 3 global bank, leading the virtualization and cloud infrastructure engineering team for over 2000 mission critical applications. Prior to that, Anthony served in early leadership positions at several high growth tech companies such as Citrix, Cisco and VMware.

 

About IBM

 

IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalise on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit ibm.com for more information.