Move Beyond 'Checklist' Compliance

The shift to real-time compliance is gaining urgency as US instant payment adoption grows. The FedNow network, which launched in July 2023, now includes over 1,300 institutions and processed 1.51 million payments in 2024. Its private-sector rival, The Clearing House's RTP network, handled 343 million payments in the same year, demonstrating the increasing demand for immediate, 24/7 transactions. This domestic growth mirrors a global push for instant cross-border payments. Initiatives like Project Nexus aim to connect multiple real-time payment networks worldwide, while bilateral links, such as those between Singapore's PayNow and Thailand's PromptPay, are already enabling users to send money internationally in minutes using just a phone number. In Africa, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) is facilitating cross-border payments in local currencies, recently partnering with Kenya's Pesalink to connect over 80 Kenyan financial institutions to its network. To combat the heightened fraud risks of instant payments, firms are turning to AI-driven solutions that move beyond static rules. AI models analyze vast datasets in real-time to detect anomalies in user behavior, assigning risk scores to transactions based on factors like location, frequency, and purchase history. This allows for the identification of sophisticated fraud patterns, with some major card networks reducing false declines by over 30% while improving detection accuracy. Digital identity verification is also becoming more sophisticated, incorporating behavioral and liveness biometrics. By analyzing typing patterns, navigation habits, and verifying that a user is physically present, financial institutions add layers of security that are more difficult to compromise than traditional authentication methods. This is critical as generative AI makes deepfakes and other synthetic identity fraud more common. This technological shift is occurring amidst heightened regulatory scrutiny of bank-fintech partnerships. Regulators are increasingly focused on third-party risk management, ensuring banks have clear visibility and control over the activities of their fintech partners. This has led to banks imposing stricter compliance expectations on their fintech collaborators, demanding greater transparency and alignment on risk management. For product leaders, navigating this landscape requires influencing cross-functional teams without direct authority. Success hinges on building trust and credibility by deeply understanding the goals and constraints of stakeholders in engineering, design, and sales. This is achieved through clear communication, leveraging data to build a compelling case, and consistently aligning teams around a shared product vision. Institutional interest in blockchain and stablecoins is also maturing, moving from experimental phases to strategic implementation for payments and treasury management. Nearly half of financial institutions surveyed in 2025 are already using stablecoins for payments, with many more in pilot stages. This adoption is driven by the potential for faster settlements, improved liquidity, and greater transparency, with 99% of stablecoin market value pegged to the U.S. dollar. Despite a slowdown in overall fintech venture funding, investment is concentrating on more established companies, with the median deal size increasing by 33% in 2024. Payments and banking technology remain strong sub-sectors, attracting significant investor interest due to their stability amidst market volatility. In 2024, 14 new fintech unicorns emerged globally, bringing the total to 326.