Every major innovation in payments has sought to solve the same challenge: how to establish and maintain trust between parties exchanging value. That's the framing running through Volante and The Paypers' report, Payments reimagined with AI, right from its opening page. One of the report’s recurring themes is that modern payments are becoming increasingly fragmented across traditional rails, real-time networks, and emerging digital-currency ecosystems. What's changed now, the report highlights, is that AI is poised to push transactions to a scale and pace the industry hasn't handled before, which makes this less about adopting new tools and more about orchestrating systems across multiple rails, currencies, and regulatory regimes in real time.
Here are some of the report’s key takeaways:
A short history, from coins to cryptographic proof
Coins, bills of exchange, cheques, cards, and SWIFT each marked a different way of solving the same problem. SWIFT launched in 1973 with 239 banks across 15 countries; Diners Club introduced deferred, institutionally -backed payment in 1950; and Bank of America's 1958 "Fresno drop"-mailing live credit cards, unsolicited, to every household in one Californian city - helped kick-start mass card adoption.
Bitcoin's 2008 whitepaper marked a real break from that lineage: an attempt at cryptographic proof rather than trust, removing the need for a third party altogether. The report treats this as the hinge point between trust-based and proof-based payment systems.
Digital wallets at the intersection of default and future
Stablecoins and CBDCs – from fiction to reality
146 countries and currency unions, representing over 98% of global GDP, are now exploring a CBDC - though only three (the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Nigeria) have fully implemented one so far. Stablecoins, typically pegged 1:1 to a fiat currency (99% to the US dollar), already facilitate around USD 30 billion in daily transactions, according to a 2025 McKinsey report - still under 1% of global money flows, but growing by an order of magnitude over four years.
Regulatory clarity is framed as a driver of this, not a brake: the US GENIUS Act and the EU's MiCA both now require issuers to hold conservative, 1:1 reserves, which the report ties directly to faster settlement and less liquidity trapped in Nostro/Vostro accounts.
AI is already earning its keep in fraud and compliance
Global spending on AI within financial services hit an estimated USD 35 billion in 2023. The World Economic Forum estimates 32–39% of workflows across banking, insurance, and capital markets have high potential for automation. Fraud and compliance are the most mature use cases specifically: AI can cut account validation rejection rates by 20%, and as of 2024, 62% of banks were already using AI for fraud prevention and 30% for credit scoring.
The report puts it directly: the next question is not whether financial institutions will use AI, but how far they are prepared to trust increasingly autonomous systems to make decisions on their behalf.
Human oversight isn't optional
The report highlights that more autonomy doesn't mean fewer people in the loop, particularly in fraud detection, AML, credit scoring, and onboarding, where an unchecked error carries financial, ethical, and reputational cost simultaneously. AutoRek research cited in the report found 41% of managers expect "training agents" to become part of their job within five years, and 36% expect to manage them directly.
Fulcrum Digital makes the sharpest version of the argument: in finance, the greatest risk doesn't come from moving too slowly. It comes from delegating too much, too soon, to something you can't fully see.
What's coming next?
The report's interview with Volante's Global Head of Product, Nadish Lad, adds a few forward-looking details worth mentioning. Cross-border payments, in his view, are heading toward programmable money - transactions triggered automatically by pre-set conditions and held in a digital wallet rather than a traditional bank account, with the settlement mechanism itself invisible to the end user. When it comes to routing, he's direct: a user won't manually choose between SWIFT and a stablecoin corridor. "Agentic programs will choose the optimal, fastest, cheapest, and best method," with a US-to-Africa corridor floated as an example of where this could matter most.
He's also pointed out what's still unresolved: even with universal ISO 20022 adoption, jurisdictional data "dialects" persist, and the open question on federated data-sharing isn't technical - it's who moves first to share it (behavioural patterns, not client identities).
One conclusion runs throughout the report: the future of payments will not be determined by AI alone. Financial institutions will need to balance automation with governance, speed with security, and innovation with accountability as payment ecosystems become more complex.
For a deeper look at how Agentic AI, digital currencies, ISO 20022, and payment orchestration could reshape financial services, download the full Payments reimagined with AI report.
About the author
Paula Albu has experience in content writing and editing, as well as being a creative storyteller. As a Junior Editor at The Paypers, she investigates Web3 technologies along with the latest trends and regulations in banking and fintech. Paula is committed to turning complex industry topics into engaging, accessible content that resonates with readers and creates a meaningful connection. She is available via LinkedIn or at paula@thepaypers.com.
About Volante Technologies
Volante Technologies is a trusted cloud payments modernisation partner, delivering real‑time, API‑enabled, and ISO 20022‑native platforms that power millions of mission‑critical transactions for leading banks and payment networks worldwide.
