Why the second half of the 2020s will redefine payments

Deepak Gupta is EVP of product, engineering, and services at Volante Technologies, a provider of cloud payments and financial messaging solutions.

Fedwire has become the latest major payment network to officially migrate to ISO 20022 messaging, which inspired the rest of this article's reflections, predictions and analysis. Widely anticipated by the industry, this milestone is more than a compliance checkbox. It marks a convergence point, where modernization efforts shift from distant goals to active forces reshaping the financial ecosystem.

Fedwire’s ISO 20022 migration signals a turning point for payments. Real-time account-to-account (A2A), cloud-first banking, embedded finance, AI, and even stablecoins are shifting from concepts to operating reality, testing institutions’ ability to scale with interoperability, intelligence, and trust. As we enter the second half of 2025, financial institutions face a new phase. The first half of the decade was about foundational change; the next will be defined by execution at scale and rising expectations across every transaction.

From mandate to growth engine: ISO 20022 solidifies Its role

The global shift to ISO 20022 is no longer theoretical. With Fedwire's July migration joining FedNow, RTP®, SEPA, and other leading rails, the standard is now even more deeply embedded into the global payments architecture. For example, more than 90% of cross-border messages exchanged via SWIFT are expected to use ISO 20022.

Institutions that treated ISO 20022 purely as a compliance requirement may soon find themselves at a disadvantage. Those who view the standard as a strategic asset already realize the upside. KPMG reports that ISO 20022 messages carry 30–40% more data per payment, delivering richer context for fraud detection, compliance, and liquidity management. 

One major U.S. financial institution recently demonstrated how ISO 20022 enables advanced cross-border routing, validation, and settlement across multiple jurisdictions, supporting real-time rails such as SWIFT gpi, FedNow, RTP, and SEPA Instant. These capabilities are becoming essential for banks serving global clients with complex liquidity and compliance needs.

This expanded data set equips banks to shift from reactive reporting to predictive intelligence, enabling more personalized services and greater operational insight.

Real-time payments reach an inflection point

While real-time payments are well established globally, the U.S. is entering a new phase of maturity. In 2024, the RTP network processed 343 million transactions, up 38% year over year, with total value reaching $246 billion. Yet adoption remains uneven: 74% of large banks now offer real-time capabilities, compared to 44% of smaller institutions, highlighting massive growth and a sharp accessibility divide.

Globally, the pace is quickening. In 2023, more than 266 billion real-time A2A transactions were processed worldwide, a 42% year-over-year increase. As the lines between B2B and B2C continue to blur, corporate treasurers now expect the same immediacy and integration they enjoy as consumers.

Real-time is no longer a luxury. It's the new baseline. Corporate finance teams are demanding real-time liquidity views and just-in-time payments for everything from payroll to supplier disbursements. Institutions that can support these workflows, especially with multi-rail flexibility across RTP, FedNow, SWIFT gpi, and SEPA, are positioned to win. To support this multi-rail evolution, legacy vendors must refocus on delivering payment systems that give banks seamless access to every rail. That flexibility is increasingly the difference between keeping pace with expectations and leading the next era of payments.

Embedded finance moves from trend to infrastructure
By late 2025, embedded finance will no longer be confined to flashy fintech demos. It will power real economic value, letting businesses offer financial services within their workflows without a bank login screen.

Payment initiation, financing, reconciliation, and fraud protection are embedded into ERPs, e-commerce platforms, and vertical SaaS tools. This shift is evident in B2B procurement, where embedded lending and real-time payment options replace checks and manual transfers. For financial institutions, embedded finance is an opportunity to become invisible yet indispensable, serving customers wherever they do business.

AI and regulation: two sides of the same coin

Instant payments bring speed but also scrutiny. In 2024, losses from fraudulent bank transfers and payments soared to $2.09 billion, making it the most costly category of fraud reported to the FTC, a notable jump from $1.86 billion in 2023. As real-time payments become ubiquitous, AI will be central to mitigating fraud, automating compliance, and ensuring that speed doesn't come at the expense of trust. By 2030, almost every payment will include AI at some point in the processing workflow.

Some large banks are already pursuing proprietary and open-source AI models trained on their institutional data, enabling more tailored risk and fraud analysis. These initiatives are helping banks move beyond rule-based alerts toward adaptive systems that improve with every transaction. For institutions focused on cross-border or high-volume payments, the ability to embed AI directly into orchestration and settlement workflows will prove essential.

Meanwhile, regulations are evolving to match this urgency. The newly passed GENIUS Act signals Washington's intent to push for smarter, faster, and more inclusive payments infrastructure. For banks, this adds pressure and momentum. Institutions already investing in AI-driven orchestration, smart routing, and centralized visibility are better positioned to remain compliant without stalling growth.

Stablecoins: A genius idea?

While ISO 20022 standardization, real-time payment networks acceleration, and increasing AI-driven orchestration are exciting, stablecoins may prove to be the wildcard that reshapes global value exchange, and much sooner than we might expect. The GENIUS Act has given stablecoins — a type of cryptocurrency whose value is tied to regulated and stable assets — a clear regulatory foundation in the U.S., signaling their transformation from speculative crypto instrument to regulated financial infrastructure. 

Their potential is especially disruptive for cross-border transactions, where corporate treasurers face numerous delays and high costs. Stablecoins offer the possibility of near-instant, programmable settlements across currencies and jurisdictions, enabling treasury teams to move money as fluidly as data. But stablecoins will not achieve ubiquity alone. Their success depends on the rich contextual data of ISO 20022 and the 24/7 availability of instant payment systems. 

Together, all of these forces could form a new payments ecosystem where speed, data, and programmability converge, while money moves with intelligence, transparency, and trust. 

Whether stablecoins become the “genius” idea that redefines treasury payments or a complementary layer that accelerates modernization already underway, their trajectory is in motion. The next one to three years will likely determine whether they fulfill this transformational promise.

What 2030 looks like

If the past few years have laid the foundation, the road to 2030 will be about scaling intelligently. 

By then, we can expect AI-driven payment flows to be table stakes. While stablecoins are becoming increasingly central to payments, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are already in pilot phases in several countries and will likely reshape how liquidity and settlement are managed worldwide with programmable, trusted infrastructure. Payments as a Service (PaaS) platforms will also become central. Institutions that embrace PaaS will be able to deliver real-time, multi-rail, multi-currency services without the overhead of legacy maintenance.