With 2024 wrapped up, two payments industry leaders look to the year ahead, with a strong focus on the continued acceleration of global payments and stringent anti-fraud measures.
Firstly, Nadish Lad, Global Head of Product and Strategic Business at Volante Technologies speaks on impeding regulatory standards in 2025 that could help transform global real-time cross-border payments.
Lad also discusses how global policymakers’ research into Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), whilst still in their relative infancy, have the potential to cause disruption across the landscape next year.
The payments industry is entering a transformative phase, with innovations that aim to deliver faster, more secure, and cost-effective transactions across the globe.
In 2025, two pivotal trends are poised to lead the way: the adoption of the ISO 20022 messaging standard and the expansion of instant payment systems. While these developments have revolutionised domestic payments, the real opportunity lies in extending these benefits to cross-border transactions.
Consumers now expect payments that are not just seamless but also secure and instantaneous, regardless of geographical boundaries. Yet, significant friction persists in cross-border transactions due to inconsistent regulatory frameworks, particularly in areas like sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance. Addressing this challenge will require more than technological advancement – it will demand a concerted effort to harmonise legislation across jurisdictions.
I’m expecting to see an increased focus on standardising legislation that will drive solutions to streamline cross-border payments, leveraging real-time data and cloud technology to reduce transaction times and improve security. I suspect this will be driven by certain corridors e.g. by linking national instant payment schemes, enabled by ISO 20022, such as USD-EUR.
By enabling interoperability between domestic instant payment systems, real-time cross-border payments could become a practical reality in high-transaction corridors. Cloud technology and real-time analytics will underpin this evolution, providing the necessary tools to process transactions efficiently while ensuring compliance with local and international regulations.
These technologies not only accelerate settlement times but also enhance fraud detection and security measures, making cross-border payments more reliable for both businesses and consumers.
While CBDCs are emerging as a potential disruptor, their adoption remains in its infancy. For now, the priority should be optimising existing payment rails to deliver immediate benefits on a global scale. Enhancing these systems through advanced technology and regulatory alignment offers a more scalable solution to the current pain points in cross-border payments.
By addressing regulatory gaps and leveraging advanced technologies, 2025 could mark a turning point for global payments, creating a system that meets the demands of today’s connected world. This year has the potential to set the foundation for a more inclusive, efficient, and secure financial ecosystem, one where money truly moves without borders.
Next, Paul Holland, CEO of Beyond Encryption, stresses the importance of businesses significantly upgrading their anti-fraud measures in a bid to prepare for the impending wave of new fraud threats linked to AI, as well as those related to phishing in emails.
Deepfakes, AI, and synthetic identities
The rapid rise of AI and deepfake technology presents a significant challenge for financial institutions in 2025. Deepfakes – AI-generated content that replicates voices, faces, and identities – have now reached unprecedented levels of sophistication.
Fraudsters are increasingly using this technology to circumvent traditional security systems, creating synthetic identities and using voice replication to deceive customers and exploit organisations.
This emerging threat underlines the critical importance of safeguarding customer data and maintaining trust in digital interactions.
The scale and sophistication of these attacks were recently demonstrated in a high-profile case reported by Hong Kong police. A finance worker at a multinational company was tricked into transferring $25m to fraudsters using deepfake technology. The worker attended what he thought was a video conference call with several senior colleagues, including the UK-based Chief Financial Officer.
Although initially suspicious of a phishing email that requested a secret transaction, the worker was convinced by the lifelike recreations of his colleagues, who appeared to look and sound exactly as expected.
Incidents like this highlight the pressing need for banks to invest in advanced fraud detection systems capable of identifying anomalies, with AI-powered solutions such as real-time voice analysis and deepfake detection tools becoming integral to a bank’s security strategy.
Customer education will be equally as important. Banks must inform them about how to recognise AI-driven scams and emphasise the importance of verifying the authenticity of communications. Robust multi-factor authentication methods will be crucial to preventing unauthorised access and combating increasingly sophisticated attacks.
Bank on security – the importance of safeguarding customer data in 2025 and beyond
With fraud losses reaching $10.8bn in Europe alone, banks must enhance and strengthen their cybersecurity strategies to stay ahead of evolving tactics and prioritise fraud prevention in 2025.
The Cyber Security Breaches Survey revealed that 84% of businesses identified a phishing attack in the past 12 months. This means that phishing attacks remain the most common type of cyber attack that businesses face.
Further research revealed that 50% of consumers are calling on their banks to “have better fraud detection systems” in place, stating they see it as the most vital step towards protecting them and their data from falling into the wrong hands.
Although banks and financial institutions are arguably leading the way when it comes to anti-fraud technologies – as fraudsters tactics continue to evolve and consumer concerns rise, the need for continuous improvement is clear. Email attacks consistently remain the go-to method for threat actors as they are effective, easy to execute and low-cost.
With this in mind, banks must refine and enhance their existing cybersecurity practices in 2025 to protect both their business and customers’ data. As part of this approach, financial institutions should prioritise the implementation of multi-layered security, leveraging secure email software and two-factor authentication to help counteract growing threats.
Alongside this, banks should also prioritise providing staff security training, which worryingly, less than a fifth of businesses currently provide.
