The payments industry ran at full throttle throughout 2025, and 2026 looks set to keep the pace. Paylume delves into what some of the key issues facing the payments profession could be over the next 12 months.
2025 was yet another maxed-out year, a familiar refrain for the payments industry ever since the rise (and relentless rise) of digital payments kicked off a decade ago.
This shows absolutely no sign of slow down either, and the conveyor belt of compliance obligations and ever evolving customer expectations looks set to continue for the payments world.
With January fast approaching, Paylume’s experts have taken a deep dive into what the next year’s developments truly mean, and the potential shifts, trends, and opportunities we could see shaping the months ahead for the industry.
Getting Verification Of Payee Right Will Remain A Critical Priority For PSPs
The mandatory Verification of Payee (VoP) service requirement came into effect on 9 October 2025 for payment service providers (PSPs) in euro‑denominated payments across the EU, and as of this deadline, most banks and payment firms with a presence in the euro area are required to check that the payee’s name matches the IBAN/account details before an instant credit transfer is executed.
This gets even further enhanced and extended through the EU’s proposed Payment Services Regulation (PSR), which the formal adoption of should come in early 2026.
However, there remain regulatory fragmentation issues around the SCA exemption. Specifically, Article 14 of PSD2 appears to contradict the compliance obligations for the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR).
Next year will likely see further tangible improvements for VoP, and it will be a priority for payment services to get this right, so that they can ensure frictionless customer outcomes at the same time as preventing the rise and rise of authorised push payment (APP) scams.
“Overall, Verification of Payee has been relatively successful in the retail payments space. However, performance in the corporate segment has been less strong, largely due to a lack of alignment. We anticipate that standardisation in this area is likely and the corporate segment is likely to grow,” said Kjeld Herreman, co-founder of Paylume.
Digital Currencies And The Moment Of Truth
In 2026, the debate around digital currencies and their impact on retail and wholesale payments are unlikely to go away and could even shift from a concept to practical use beyond crypto trading. This would mark a pivotal moment for payments and would have a significant impact across the ecosystem.
2025 saw key initiatives, including euro-denominated stablecoins being unveiled by a coalition of financial institutions and continued progress on the digital euro. 2026 will see this progress continue, and supervisory changes in the US with the GENIUS Act as well as the digital euro’s legislative element, are likely to progress.
The end-result could herald faster, cheaper, and more direct settlements, especially cross-border but the market is in dire need of important clarifications on the regulatory regime and compliance implications of those new form of money as costs linked to those could end up outweighing the potential benefits of developing an entirely new infrastructure.
“During 2026, digital currencies are poised to move from pilots to real-world use cases. This could open up faster, more affordable, and globally interoperable payments that are able to challenge traditional systems, while testing central banks’ and regulators’ ability to balance innovation with financial stability”, said Fabien Depasse, senior advisor at Paylume.
Cross-Border Payments Will Become Increasingly Frictionless
The November 2025 ISO 20022 migration marked a significant milestone for cross-border payments and adherence was a major achievement for many financial institutions in Europe and around the world.
Yet, this is not the endpoint for banks, as early adoption has largely focused on compliance rather than optimisation.
Plenty of institutions still rely on simplified or translated messages, and achieving full interoperability and data richness requires continued refinement, alignment, and adoption of updated message versions.
It can be expected in 2026 that cross-border payments will continue to become increasingly becomes instant, straight-through, cheaper, and more transparent, as global infrastructures like the ECB’s TIPS platform connect with major systems such as India’s UPI and Nexus, enabling instant payments beyond one jurisdiction.
“2026 represents the operational phase where ISO 20022’s full potential, combined with instant payment corridors, will begin to deliver seamless, efficient, and globally harmonised cross-border payments,” said Frederic Barbaix, co-founder of Paylume.
Open Banking, Open Finance, And The Data Opportunity
2025 ends with PSD3 and Payment Services Regulation (PSR) agreements in the EU and the legislative groundwork for advances in the UK.
When it comes to open banking to date, the focus from the banks has largely been on compliance. Future progress will depend on them embracing the open data opportunity, seeing it as a business advantage instead of a regulatory checkbox.
If banks use next year and beyond to leverage the renewed regulatory momentum and take advantage of richer datasets, it will open the door to improved lending, more personalised products and greater customer stickiness.
In the EU, all eyes will now be on the open finance framework, the Financial Data Access (FiDA) regulation, which is yet to be agreed but equally, has not been dropped as was rumoured to be the case earlier in the year.
“As we are move further towards FiDA in Europe, banks need to shift towards becoming data consumers so they themselves can become participants in the data economy and leverage their market position. Beyond Europe, we are seeing some extremely interesting distribution models for financial services utilising open banking and the UK and EU need to take note,” commented Lauren Jones, Open Banking lead.
The European Sovereignty Debate Will Continue
After a roaring 2025, in 2026, it is anticipated that Wero, the pan-European digital wallet from the European Payments Initiative (EPI), will expand beyond peer-to-peer transfers into e-commerce and point-of-sale payments, opening up opportunities for account-to-account payments across multiple countries in the EU and reducing dependence on US card schemes, which has become a pain point for the EU.
Simultaneously, EuroPA, a consortium of national mobile payment schemes including Bancomat, Bizum, and MB WAY, will also advance, with the hopes of regulators and politicians at least that it will interconnect with Wero to support seamless, cross-border pan-European payments.
“There is the potential for these initiatives to strengthen Europe’s payment sovereignty, allowing for Europe’s long held hope of a competitive alternative to the dominant global systems. If it is done right, then this will lay the foundation for a more self-reliant, unified and European payments ecosystem,” said Jimmie Franklin, payments consultant at Paylume.
As 2026 unfolds, the payments landscape has the potential to deliver continuously better experiences, complementary of regulations like the Instant Payments Regulation, while also innovative and collaborative.
So, here’s to a year of progress, prosperity and opportunity. Paylume wishes everybody in the community a prosperous New Year ahead!
