The year ahead for fintech: unified payments and the AI agenda
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At the start of 2024, it seemed like the biggest talking points in payments were Open Banking and AI. At the close of the year, with Bitcoin hitting $100,000 earlier this month, crypto is the talk of the town.

Payments stakeholders have a myriad of expectations for what the New Year will bring, as the industry awaits the inauguration of crypto advocate Donald Trump and the final adoption of MiCA regulations in the EU. Greater adoption of Open Banking and unified payments, and hopefully more regulatory clarity around AI, are also in many stakeholders’ Christmas lists.

Primer, a payments infrastructure developer, believes that the industry is ready for payments changes. The firm has cited research showing that 89% of ‘payment leaders’ believe that their company requires significant updates or overhauls of their paytech stack.

The company believes this will drive an increase in demand for unified payments. Primer CEO and Co-Founder, Gabriel Le Roux, states: “This indicates a growing dissatisfaction with the status quo and a push for increased flexibility and agility to shift payments from transactional to truly transformational.

“Five years ago, it was common to use one Payment Service Provider (PSP) for everything. Today, multi-PSP is a necessity for scaling across borders and ensuring payment system reliability. As a result, we’re likely to see more merchants leveraging advanced infrastructure in 2025 to turn payments into a competitive advantage.”

12 months down the line, AI remains as relevant and topical now as it did on New Years Day 2024. The technology has been the subject of extensive regulatory attention throughout the year, such as the EU’s AI Act and international cooperation between the AI Safety Institutes of the US and UK.

Fraud prevention has also been a common talking point in payments circles, and unsparingly the conversation between AI and fraud has seen significant overlap. AI’s potential for fraud prevention is a long-discussed concept, but one that brings its own challenges with it.

The use of AI by fraudsters themselves to generate voice clones and deepfake images further complicates this. Payments firms and fraud prevention teams are in an AI arms race to try and keep one step ahead of these fraudsters – not an easy task.

“Fraud and cybercrime are rising alongside the growth of digital payments. In 2025, AI will play a key role in combating these threats,” says Lorenzo Pellegrino, CEO of Kuady, a digital wallet app.

“However, it’s a double-edged sword—fraudsters are also using AI to carry out more sophisticated attacks, such as deepfake identity fraud, which we’ve seen more and more of in 2024. These technologies are being used to impersonate individuals during authentication processes, adding a new layer of complexity.”

Pellegrino expects a ‘wave’ of AI powered tools to come to the forefront of risk management, fraud detection and identity verification in 2025, for use by both businesses and consumers. These innovations will be further supported by the regulatory developments outlined above, in an ideal world at least.

“Regulations like the EU AI Act will add another dimension, presenting compliance challenges,” he adds. “Staying ahead of AI-focused regulatory changes and investing in adaptable compliance tools will be essential for payment companies.”

Looking back at Primer’s research, the company expects AI to further maximise payments success next year, based on its survey which found that 89% of payments leaders plan to invest in paytech.

AI will likely be the target for a significant chunk of payments stakeholders investments. This will see the combination of investment trends seen throughout 2024 in which AI has proven itself as a huge investment magnet.

“These technologies will not only help merchants identify payment trends more effectively than the human eye, but also keep malicious activities and fraudsters at bay,” Primer CEO Le Roux continues.

“This will enable merchants to avoid repeating the challenges faced over the last couple of years, when losses from payment fraud exceeded £11bn – a number that is growing.”