From regulatory pressure and cross-border innovation to geopolitical tensions and real-time transformation, these are the payments stories that captured attention, and raised bigger questions, through the first half of 2025.
As the global payments ecosystem enters a new era of digitisation and decentralisation, the first six months of the year have delivered no shortage of headlines.
Legacy litigation has returned to the balance sheets of card networks. Big Tech’s grip on financial infrastructure has tightened. And governments have drawn sharper lines in the sand around crypto, stablecoins, and monetary sovereignty.
In this H1 roundup, Payment Expert presents the five most-read stories of 2025 so far; those that drew the strongest readership and social engagement across our platform. But we’re also going deeper.
Our editorial team has selected three standout features that signalled broader shifts in the financial system, even if they didn’t top the traffic charts. Together, they offer a clearer picture of where the industry is heading, and who’s shaping it.
The five most-read stories of H1 2025
1. Legal toll dims Visa’s bottom line in otherwise resilient Q2
Visa may have posted another quarter of strong revenue and payments volume growth, but investors were watching a different line.
Back in May, the payments giant revealed that nearly $1bn in litigation charges linked to the long-running interchange fee case had cut into its Q2 profits. It was a rare financial dent for one of the sector’s most consistently performing players, and one that sparked renewed debate over legacy regulation and fee structures in global card networks.
2. X Money: Elon Musk’s bold step towards a ‘Super App’
Elon Musk’s ambitions for “X” extended far beyond social media this year. In one of our most clicked stories of 2025, Payment Expert explored plans for a new payment system, X Money, that could integrate everything from fiat to crypto into a WeChat-style ecosystem.
With licences secured in 33 US states and speculation around a stealth launch growing fast, the article gave readers early insight into how Musk’s next frontier could impact mobile payments, creator monetisation, and digital identity.
3. XRP surges after Trump’s Treasury pick rejects CBDCs
Crypto moved back into the political spotlight in January after XRP overtook Bitcoin as the most traded asset on Coinbase just days after Donald Trump’s Treasury nominee publicly rejected Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
A high-profile meeting between Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Trump added fuel to the rally. The piece offered a detailed look at how political backing, ETF speculation, and broader anti-CBDC sentiment have driven renewed momentum in the digital asset space.
4. UK industry unites to launch new entity for commercial variable recurring payments
Among the most technical but impactful stories of H1, this exclusive revealed the formation of a new UK-wide entity for delivering commercial variable recurring payments (cVRPs).
With backing from 31 major institutions, including banks, fintechs and PSPs, the piece captured a landmark shift in the open banking ecosystem.
For many readers, it signalled that open banking is maturing beyond one-off payments into real-world use cases with scale, stability, and strategic alignment.
5. PagoNxt: Too many banks are missing the opportunities of real-time payments
This thought leadership piece from PagoNxt CEO Jose Luis Calderon struck a chord with readers across Europe.
As SEPA Instant deadlines loomed, Calderon pulled no punches in criticising banks for lagging behind on infrastructure, readiness, and customer-centric service models. With real-time expectations becoming the norm, the article served as both a technical deep-dive and a call to arms for legacy institutions navigating the new 24/7 payments economy.
The stories that signalled deeper shifts
While the top five articles captured the most traffic, they don’t tell the whole story. Some features sparked deeper questions about the structure, governance and future direction of financial systems; stories that analysed what they could mean for the months (and years) to come. Below are three editorial picks that shaped the newsroom conversation and challenged the status quo.
Why stablecoins have central bankers running scared
Selected by: Editor Rachael Kennedy
This piece cut through the noise around digital currencies with urgency. When ECB President Christine Lagarde warned lawmakers that stablecoins could undermine monetary policy and financial stability; the message was that private digital money is now a systemic concern.
For Editor Rachael Kennedy, the article stood out for how it contextualised central bank unease within a broader contest over trust and control. “There’s a real tension here,” she notes. “Stablecoins offer features the public sector can’t easily match—speed, accessibility, 24/7 usability. But central banks are drawing hard lines to protect the core functions of monetary policy.”
The feature unpacked not only Lagarde’s comments but also a sweeping BIS report that questioned stablecoins’ fitness for purpose. With tokenisation and CBDC pilots accelerating in parallel, the piece helped frame the next phase of debate: who gets to design the future of money, and on whose terms?
How addressing African financial inclusion led to Orange Money leading with mobile payments
Selected by: Callum Williams, Senior Payments Journalist
It may have been one of the worst kept secrets of Africa’s proliferation in adoption of mobile payments, but did anyone stop and question why the continent was leading this charge?
I spoke to Joëlle Hazoume Alao, Business Developer, Program Director and Board Member of Orange Money in June to uncover how one of the leading companies behind the surge in the adoption of mobile payments has helped bring forth new financial inclusions across Africa.
Here, we explore boundaries to financial inclusion – such as internet connection and political unrest – as well as how Orange varies its strategic approach based on mobile payment adoption rates from country to country.
Alao also spoke on Orange’s microlending offering that is breaking down a new financial inclusion barrier, while also revealing how the company is utilising AI as a support system for mobile payments.
A new world payments order? Europe’s bid to move away from US-China dominance
Selected by: Kieran O’Connor, Payments Journalist
US President Donald Trump has been at the centre of many global developments in the first half of this year. However, it was his tariff policies in April which had writers at Payment Expert racing to keep pace.
One of the most significant outcomes of these tariffs was Europe’s recognition of its overdependence on the US and China. Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), urged the continent to “make sure there is a European offer.”
In this article, Payment Expert spoke with Steffen Vollert, Co-Founder and Interim CEO of London-based real-time payment company Volt, to examine what alternatives might exist to traditional US-based card systems.
Vollert said: “We’ve taken cards for granted for the better part of a century as ‘owners’ of the global payments infrastructure, but are they about to be replaced in the new world order?”
H2 will test resilience, regulation, and reach
If the first half of 2025 was about disruption and positioning, the second half will be about execution. Real-time payment mandates in Europe, stablecoin frameworks in the US, and intensifying debates around digital identity and financial sovereignty are all set to shape the next chapter.
With fintech investment rebounding and geopolitical influence creeping deeper into infrastructure decisions, the payments industry is being redefined. We’ll be tracking every shift.
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