Latest long reads: Finextra Research

Modernising payments in 2025: How banks are moving from rail-centric to outcome-centric

Dominique Dierks Senior Content Manager at Finextra

Modernising payments in 2025: How banks are moving from rail-centric to outcome-centric

The world of payments has never been more complex that it is today. What was ‘nice to have’ five years ago is now essential for consumers; a plethora of payment options is the expectation. To meet these demands, financial institutions need to adapt to new payment rails, the shift towards instant, and increasing demand for alternative payment metho...

1 hour /Sibos

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is Verification of Payee?

Verification of Payee (VoP) is a pre-payment security measure which confirms whether a payment recipient’s name matches the bank account details provided by the payer, before a transaction is executed. Not to be confused with Confirmation of Payee (CoP) – which performs a similar function, though specific to the United Kingdom and introduced by P...

16 September 2025 /regulation

Payments through the lenses of simplicity, security, and society

Teresa Connors Managing Director at Payment Matters

Payments through the lenses of simplicity, security, and society

Everyone wants to know where the payments industry is heading. But crystal balls are misty things. Headlines like “our industry is moving at pace,” “modernise your payment systems or be left behind,” and “get on board with agentic AI” capture the mood of disruption, but they don’t tell the whole story. To cut through the noise, it helps to look at ...

16 September 2025 /payments

Rewiring trade finance: How technology is powering a front-to-back revolution

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

Rewiring trade finance: How technology is powering a front-to-back revolution

Amid geopolitical shifts and regulatory pressures, trade finance is evolving into a more intricate and demanding landscape. To stay competitive, banks and corporates must modernise their international trade strategies – balancing compliance, agility and innovation. In 2024, the global trade finance market was valued at $9.7 trillion and is estima...

10 September 2025 /Sibos

Stablecoin summer: The summer financial services turned crypto-curious

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Stablecoin summer: The summer financial services turned crypto-curious

The summer of 2025 may be remembered as the moment stablecoins moved from speculative sidelines to the centre of financial innovation. Despite the term ‘stablecoin’ first appearing in 2013, and early launches like BitUSD and Tether following soon after, this season marked the closest the industry has come to creating a truly less volatile cryptocu...

09 September 2025 /crypto

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What are social engineering scams?

Social engineering is the next cybersecurity battleground. In August 2025 alone, social engineering and multi-chain attacks drove a 15% crypto hack spike – with $163 million lost across 16 major breaches, targeting exchanges, DeFi protocols, and individual users. According to the on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, one investor lost 783 Bitcoin, worth $91 mi...

08 September 2025 /crime

What does NZBA’s decline in big bank members mean for sustainability in banking?

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

What does NZBA’s decline in big bank members mean for sustainability in banking?

The fact the Net-Zero Banking Alliance is smaller now than it was last year could be deemed a failure for the organisation, and by many advocates of action to mitigate climate change, as a shameful reversal of commitment not just by the top institutions in the banking industry, but of society itself. But what if the exit from the volunteer body – ...

05 September 2025 /sustainable

From biology to business: Neuromorphic computing pathways to intelligent innovation

Dimitrios Salampasis Assoc. Professor, Emerging Technologies & FinTech at Swinburne University of Technology

From biology to business: Neuromorphic computing pathways to intelligent innovation

From algorithms to AI: Promise, power, and the pressing challenges ahead Large scale datasets and information processing requirements, within complex environments, are continuously reaching unprecedented levels of sophistication, especially in the advent of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, pushing the boundaries of fierce c...

04 September 2025 /ai

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is blockchain?

Since its ideation over 30 years ago, blockchain’s use by the private and public sector has grown exponentially. In August 2025, Bloomberg reported that the United States had put its gross domestic product (GDP) data on blockchain, marking yet another foray by President Trump into the world of crypto. Google Cloud, meanwhile, is said to be develo...

02 September 2025 /crypto

Top payments stories you missed in August 2025

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

Bridging the divide: The hybrid future of stablecoins and traditional finance

The financial landscape is undergoing a profound transformation driven by the imperatives of the digital economy and the internet which have reshaped modern businesses. The speed and global reach of the digital economy are amplifying the perceived shortcomings of traditional finance: cost, speed, and accessibility. While the push for real-time pay...

29 August 2025 /crypto

Are you a HENRY (High Earner, Not Rich Yet)?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Are you a HENRY (High Earner, Not Rich Yet)?

As reported in Moneywise, HENRYs are a “surprisingly large class of Americans who pull in big bucks but still feel financially strapped.” Despite earning over $100,000 annually, because these individuals do not have substantial wealth, assets or the investment knowledge to make a change in this era of inflation and high cost of living, they remai...

28 August 2025 /wealth

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