The New Payment Landscape

Editor's note: This paper was researched and first shared with IMA members in November 2025. Some data points and regulatory references reflect the position at that time; where relevant, readers should treat figures as a snapshot rather than current status. We believe the paper's core arguments remain relevant and are resurfacing it given recent developments in India's payments infrastructure.

Global payment systems have changed rapidly over the past decade, driven by advances in technology, regulation and public digital infrastructure. From card-centric networks, payments systems have tilted sharply toward state-led digital infrastructure. Instant payment systems (IPS) such as India’s UPI, Brazil’s PIX, Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay, have grown rapidly, processing billions of transactions a month at near-zero cost. Their rise has been driven by a mix of technological change, efficiency-and-financial-inclusion targets and the strategic need for domestic control over digital commerce. More than 70 countries have deployed real-time payment rails, handling a significant share of everyday retail and business payments. Many are also testing digital currencies and tightening control over financial data, making the movement of money faster and more regulated. This paper outlines an ongoing journey and examines the major developments and business implications emerging from it.

Rebuilding the Plumbing of Global Payments

Coinciding with this infrastructure transition is renewed attention on the monetary layer itself. Over 130 central banks are researching or piloting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with China’s e-CNY and India’s e₹ fast becoming reference points. These initiatives extend state oversight beyond settlement into issuance, programmability and real-time analytics. Importantly, they coexist with existing payment systems: neither China nor India is seeking to replace established rails but to widen policy options and enhance control. Alongside payments and digital currency, data governance has tightened. India’s RBI data localisation directive, China’s PIPL framework and the EU’s emerging PSD3 architecture have hardened jurisdictional boundaries around financial information. These rules bring payments, compliance and data management into a single regulatory sphere, increasing the operational burden on firms while clarifying national prerogatives.

Finally, cross-border payments have begun to move beyond correspondent banking. Bilateral links such as the UPI–PayNow corridor, and multilateral projects like BIS Project Nexus and the mBridge wholesale CBDC network, mark early attempts to create faster, cheaper international transfers. These are still in development, but they signal an emerging shift: the plumbing of global payments is being rebuilt in ways that reflect national interests as much as technical innovation.

How Instant Payments are Shifting the Business Landscape

State-operated instant payment systems have shifted market power away from card networks and private processors. India’s UPI now accounts for over 80% of domestic digital transaction volumes, while Brazil’s PIX handles over $5tn worth of transactions annually. Comparable systems in Southeast Asia and Europe are scaling up, with regulators pushing for universal adoption and near-zero fees. These systems reduce payment frictions, expand digital commerce and create a unified national standard, something private networks never fully achieved. New cross-border linkages, such as UPI-PayNow, adds further momentum to public-payment interoperability. The implications are clear:

• Merchants are seeing improved margins and reduced cash leakage owing to lower acceptance costs

• But instant settlements also compress liquidity buffers and eliminate traditional float

• Treasury teams must manage more frequent reconciliation cycles, real-time refunds and higher variability in daily cash positions

• Firms also face higher integration costs as multiple instant rails, each with distinct formats and compliance rules, become standard across markets

CBDCs: Making Money ‘Programmable’

CBDC pilots are expanding, with China’s e-CNY surpassing RMB 14tn in cumulative transactions and India exploring offline e₹ payments, targeted subsidies and programmable features. Although widespread adoption remains uncertain, the direction of policy suggests that firms should expect tighter linkages between transactions, reporting and regulatory oversight, and perhaps even a shift in how central banks conduct monetary policy and manage liquidity. Unlike IPS, which only moves money faster, CBDCs allow rules-based transfers: expiry dates, use-case restrictions and automated settlement. Early CBDC pilots, such as those under mBridge, show meaningful reductions in cross-border settlement times and costs. Again, these changes have a bearing on organisations:

• CBDCs may alter how treasury operations work, especially for firms reliant on cross-border flows, and those with large working capital requirements or subsidy-linkages

• Programmable money could change how reimbursements, disbursements or conditional payments are executed

• Businesses will need to accommodate new wallet standards, intermediated models and control frameworks

The Data Sovereignty Imperative…

Financial data, once treated mainly as a privacy issue, is now a strategic asset. India’s localisation mandate requires full transaction data storage within the country; China restricts cross-border data transfers under PIPL; and Europe’s PSD3 and Payment Services Regulation will harmonise open- banking APIs while enforcing advanced fraud monitoring. These frameworks reflect a common priority: ensuring that payment data remains under domestic jurisdiction and accessible for supervisory use. As systems become real-time, so do risk and fraud obligations, pushing regulators to demand more granular oversight – which will impact businesses at multiple levels:

• Firms must comply with divergent data requirements across markets, raising infrastructure and compliance costs

• Cross-border models must adapt to local storage obligations, consent regimes and fraud-monitoring standards that operate at settlement-level speed

• For MNCs, the challenge is maintaining system integrity across jurisdictions with incompatible rules. Data decisions will increasingly become part of the firm’s risk governance

…and Geopolitical Calculations

Payment rails are increasingly tied into geopolitics. The US has raised concerns around PIX’s rising scale and its potential influence across Latin America, prompting reviews by policymakers and trade bodies. China’s CIPS network continues to expand, processing $24.6 tn of transactions in 2024 while adding participants across Asia and Africa. Wholesale CBDC platforms such as mBridge, which involves China, the UAE, Thailand and Saudi Arabia, have drawn scrutiny for their potential to bypass dollar-based settlement and reduce the reliance on SWIFT. Firms will need to watch out for the following:

• Exposure to politicised infrastructure, where access, sanctions screening or settlement rules vary depending on diplomatic stance

• Cross-border treasury operations, vendor payments and supply-chain flows may need multi-rail redundancy as a safeguard

• Regulatory (over)reaction, such as increased scrutiny of foreign rails, more demanding AML obligations and potential restrictions on participating in certain networks

Adapting to a World in Flux…

Digital payments have become faster, cheaper and more inclusive, but also less neutral, more regulated and deeply entangled with domestic public policy. These changes deliver efficiency but introduce new complexities around compliance, cross-border operations and geopolitical exposure. A convergence of instant payments, CBDCs, data rules and geopolitical scrutiny is creating a more efficient but more fragmented financial environment. For corporates, the most immediate impact will be on liquidity and treasury, but many will also need to create stronger cash forecasting and integrated treasury-management systems. Compliance requirements will continue to intensify and global firms will need to maintain parallel systems or build modular architectures that respect local rules without fragmenting internal processes. The costs of misalignment, whether technical or regulatory, will only rise.

Strategically, firms must start thinking in terms of a multi-rail posture. No single network is likely to dominate; instead, companies will operate across cards, IPS, CBDC corridors and bank-led tokenised models. Each carries different risk, settlement behaviour and political exposure. Resilience will depend on balancing efficiency with redundancy, especially in cross-border operations where geopolitical tensions may alter access or processing standards. Firms will have to adapt not only to new technologies, but also to the political and regulatory preferences embedded within them.