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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
There is something in the air folks, first Amazon, then Mastercard and now Visa has unveiled a major strategic vision for the future of digital payments including agentic AI. The announcement was made at the company’s 2025 Global Product Drop in San Francisco, where Visa showcased how artificial intelligence will fundamentally reshape the way consumers discover, shop, and pay.
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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
World, the rebranded digital identity and cryptocurrency venture from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has officially launched in the US, bringing its biometric verification technology and digital token ecosystem to American consumers. The move marks a strategic shift for the company, which had initially rolled out its controversial iris-scanning “orb” devices across international markets, citing regulatory resistance from the Biden administration.
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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
The UK Treasury has taken a decisive step in shaping the country’s regulatory stance on digital assets, announcing that overseas stablecoin issuers will be exempt from new domestic crypto rules. This marks a significant departure from the more rigid EU approach and signals alignment with the US on the future of crypto oversight.
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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
As global commerce undergoes a profound technological transformation, the payments landscape is poised for further disruption in consumer payments. Juniper Research’s Consumer Payments Tech Horizon 2025 offers a comprehensive strategic lens through which to view the technologies shaping the future of digital payments.
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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
Last week we reported on Amazons launch of agentic AI, now Mastercard has unveiled its latest initiative to reshape the future of commerce: Agent Pay, a platform that integrates agentic artificial intelligence (AI) into payment systems.
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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
Mastercard is deepening its commitment to stablecoins, unveiling a suite of new global acceptance and payment solutions designed to embed digital currencies more seamlessly into everyday financial life. Amid growing regulatory clarity worldwide, the payments giant is positioning stablecoins not merely as speculative assets, but as critical tools to enhance efficiency, programmability, and accessibility in payments, disbursements, and remittances.
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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
As 2025 unfolds, a growing number of merchants and consumers are embracing “Pay by Bank” — a payment method allowing users to pay directly from their bank accounts, bypassing traditional card rails. Spearheaded by fintech leaders, Pay by Bank is increasingly being positioned as the most secure, cost-effective, and resilient payment solution for the future. The battle at the checkout has intensified. Once dominated by credit and debit cards, the space is now seeing a surge in alternative methods.
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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
The European card payments market, processing trillions of euros each year, remains dominated by two American giants: Visa and Mastercard. Despite the sector’s importance to modern commerce, competition has struggled to flourish, leaving Europe without payments sovereignty and heavily reliant on US-based financial infrastructure.
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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
Acquiring In today’s digital retail environment, merchants expect — and demand — seamless, feature-rich shopping experiences across all channels and devices. For smaller payment acquirers, however, delivering on these expectations presents a significant challenge. Large, established providers with deep resources have long dominated this space, leaving their smaller rivals struggling to compete.
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2 weeks ago | 
paymentscardsandmobile.com | Alex Rolfe
A new study from Juniper Research forecasts that global network tokenised transactions will double by 2029, rising from 283 billion in 2025 to an astonishing 574 billion. This surge underscores the growing significance of network tokenisation in protecting sensitive cardholder information and combating rising fraud levels across the digital payments ecosystem.
