The news: Leaders in fintech gathered at Finovate Fall in New York City to discuss emerging trends facing the industry.
The biggest themes: Here’s what we learned during breakout and paneled discussions over the course of the three-day conference.
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Real-time payments. Stephanie Miracle, director of FedNow service product management at the Federal Reserve in Boston, said real-time payment volume surged 62% from Q1 2025 to Q2 2025, and FedNow wants to expand its services to reach ubiquity among US businesses and consumers. Tyler Brown, an independent payments analyst and EMARKETER alum, said more participants and higher monetary limits can propel RTP growth.
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Regulatory changes. In a conversation between Julie Mahn, a research analyst, and Martin Kleinberg, advisor at Granular, Kleinberg postulated on the future of open banking, breaking down the history of Section 1033. He argued it was a mistake to “commingle” payments and data sharing as equivalent in the Dodd Frank Act, given the different stakeholders and beneficiaries. He described an alternative where Section 1033 restructuring focused on regulating by vertical and each actors’ role in the transaction.
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Agentic AI & innovation. David Penn, a research analyst, and Jim Marous, a financial industry strategist, underscored that incumbents and fintechs need to determine the cost and value of data and who should pay for it. Penn pointed to increased cloud activity—and the fees associated with financial institutions accessing those services—as a sign that fees don’t stifle innovation and that fees shouldn’t be borne exclusively by consumers; instead, the fintechs and data aggregators should eat the costs.
Our take: The payments industry is experiencing multiple points of disruption with agentic AI, new modalities of payments, and regulatory changes all placing pressure on ecosystem participants. Players who understand how to leverage their value during this transition period will cement their relevancy in the coming years.
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