Proponents of banking-as-a-service will be hoping that UniCredit’s decision to acquire Aion Bank and Vodeno marks a turning point in a sector that has experienced considerable volatility.

Investing in Latin America’s payment fintechs is having a moment – but will the region’s central banks kill off their revenue model by adopting their own version of Brazil’s PIX?

As multinationals navigate the complexities of developing Asian businesses – amid supply-chain reconfigurations, the rise of sustainable financing and the penetration of e-commerce – treasurers are playing a bigger role in strategic decision-making.

Bankruptcies in the buy-now-pay-later market, together with tighter regulation, present an opportunity for banks to steal a march on pure-play providers.

Mamerto Tangonan, the deputy governor and head of the payments and currency management sector at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, tells Euromoney how southeast Asian countries are using advances in digital payments to revolutionize cross-border transactions.

There is pressure on corporate treasurers to maximise the benefits of embedded finance, despite the lack of additional resources.

MBridge, China’s cross-border digital currency initiative, has entered the minimum viable product stage. It is the world’s most advanced cross-border CBDC and stands on the cusp of playing a pivotal role in the de-dollarization process.

Banks and regulators are keen to use instant payments to reduce the influence of Visa and Mastercard on the European payments industry – but replacing these two dominant players will be far from easy.

Chief financial officers and finance directors have much to gain from bundling treasury services if they can convince senior management that such offerings deliver value for money.

As mandated real-time payments loom, Europe’s banks and other payment providers must look at modernising legacy infrastructure.

The EU’s Instant Payments Regulation may have fired the starting gun on real-time payments in Europe, but many banks remain stuck in the blocks.

In a world of higher interest rates, economic uncertainties and data overload, corporate treasurers are turning to cutting-edge tools and strategies to predict and optimize their cash flows.

Many vendors believe corporate treasurers should be doing more to eliminate superfluous accounts, protect payment data and direct resources to improving paper-based processes.

Domestic companies launch banking-as-a-service models as the country's central bank creates space for new entrants.

Collaboration between national banks has seen widespread adoption of mobile payments schemes. The French and German-led approach of focusing on a single European scheme could therefore be seen as a distraction. But is it the only real way of keeping US payment companies at bay?

Implementing real-time payments can have consequences for corporates who underestimate the impact of cash leaving their business more quickly. Even as solutions become cheaper to implement, corporates are being cautious.

Strategic adjustments, such as those resulting from mergers or acquisitions, represent a valuable opportunity for corporates to enhance their payment infrastructure.

Siemens is anchor client for a new rules-based approach to banking.

Thailand wants to give almost every adult in the country money through a digital wallet. It’s an interesting step towards bringing digital finance to the mainstream.

Kenyan authorities have cleared Flutterwave of wrongdoing following an anti-money-laundering case in the East African nation. Nevertheless, industry confidence in the Africa-focused payments company remains mixed.

The overall use of cash will continue to fall, but the decline of bank branch networks means that businesses now face a headache in handling physical takings.

While the air at the Singapore Fintech Festival was full of grand ideas about GenAI, real innovation was taking place in the weeds of fintech development.

Banks say they are working hard to maintain an edge in an increasingly crowded and fragmented cross-border retail payments market.

It took five years for the invoice finance specialist Accelerated Payments to advance its first €1 billion, but just nine months for the next €500 million.

Transaction banks are collaborating with ERP system vendors and other fintechs to maximise corporate use cases for ISO 20022.

Corporate treasury expectations for on-demand financial information are yet to be addressed. The difficulty of gathering data from disparate systems should not be underestimated.

For decades, transaction banking was a profitable but largely ignored corner of the banking industry. Then Covid happened. Today, bank chiefs see it as critical to everything they do. Given the challenges ahead – collaborating with fintechs and embedding ESG principles in global supply chains – the revolution under way in this business is unstoppable.

Corporates appreciate the value of APIs when it comes to connectivity for services such as payment order transfers, cash balance updates and payment status updates. But a lack of uniform data standards continues to hinder their wider adoption.

Two new platforms show how India is building on top of its digital foundations.

Banks are calling for greater cooperation from regulators as they address demands for cheaper and faster cross-border payments.