Real-time payments are growing quickly, but adoption lags due to cost, risk, and entrenched behaviors. Providers must focus on high-friction use cases and cash-flow benefits as competition from alternative rails intensifies.

Financial services in Latin America are shifting into mobile, multi-rail ecosystems where platforms own the customer. As real-time payments and wallets drive constant engagement, banks are forced to embed or fade into the background.

Real-time payments could help SoFi’s ecosystem push its SoFi Plus membership.

Offering the popular payment method helps PayPal attract younger consumers and SMB loyalty.

Real-time payment rails remain an underdog to stablecoin-led transactions, but safety could give FedNow an edge.

While many payment giants see stablecoins as the future, not all regions have the same crypto horizons.

The network’s gamble on a real-time payments rail aged poorly as stablecoins gain traction.

Stablecoins are moving from crypto rails to mainstream payments infrastructure. Regulatory support and institutional investment are accelerating adoption, but consumer trust gaps, fragmentation, and liquidity risks pose near-term hurdles for digital payments.

It outranks security and convenience, according to a survey.

Thanks to open banking and real-time payments, pay by bank has become a promising card alternative, offering speed, low costs, and security. But US adoption remains limited. This report dives into what’s holding it back and what can boost growth.

Citi is partnering with Coinbase to build stablecoin payment capabilities for institutional clients. The partnership will focus initially on crypto on- and off-ramps, which enable clients to convert between digital assets and fiat currencies. It’s unlikely that many banks will build their own integrations with crypto rails. But with infrastructure partnerships, native on- and off-ramps should become more common. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain infrastructure will be increasingly complementary to the traditional financial system.

Erebor has received conditional approval for a national bank charter. It will be a digitally native competitor to lenders that serve the “innovation economy” and some specific industries: Erebor will focus on B2B services for AI, defense, crypto, and manufacturing companies, with offerings for high-net-worth individuals tied to those sectors. The biggest threat to traditional banks is that payments technology quickly advanced beyond what they can support or understand. Real-time payments solve the instant settlement problem that crypto provides for domestic transactions. But the next generation of changes to payments infrastructure is coming—and very few institutions are ready.

Real-time payments adoption is still in its infancy in the US. But business and consumer demand are increasing, providing a growth opportunity for banks and customer-facing payment providers.

The deal, which also includes FIS’s purchase of Global Payment’s issuing business, redraws lines that had previously been blurring

Real-time payments allow individuals and businesses to send and receive payments between bank accounts simultaneously. The process described below occurs instantaneously upon initiation.

Two US payment systems—FedNow and the RTP network—are driving real-time payments growth. New features, industry innovation, and emerging use cases will help them overcome implementation hurdles.

EWA gives consumers more financial flexibility, especially for gig workers and lower earners

The upgrade can bring in more value-added services revenues for the network and spur greater real-time payments adoption

The retailer is pushing non-card payments to save on swipe fees, a perennial frustration for merchants, but getting consumers to make the switch will be tricky

Small and medium-sized businesses will account for almost half of the $35 trillion B2B payments market this year. They have been slow to digitize, handing B2B payment providers a unique set of needs to address.