The results from The Payments Association’s annual State of the Industry survey are in. The results not only provide granular insight into the most significant trends influencing the industry, but also how the perspective of senior decision makers has shifted in recent years.
The Payments Association’s annual PAY360 state of the industry survey provides a timely snapshot of the payments landscape in 2025. Drawing on insights from 263 respondents across regions, including the UK, Europe, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Oceania, it reflects a truly international perspective. Importantly, the respondent base includes both senior decision makers and a wider cross-section of industry participants, ensuring that the findings are balanced, authoritative, and representative of the payments ecosystem as a whole.
The composition of the survey group highlights the breadth of the industry. Over one-third of respondents hold senior leadership positions, while others represent technology and solution providers, professional services, banking institutions, and merchants. Their organisations serve a wide range of customers, from banks and enterprises to consumers, reflecting the interconnected nature of today’s payments environment. This diversity allows the survey to capture both strategic priorities and operational realities.
The findings reveal a sector balancing opportunity with risk. Financial crime and cybersecurity have emerged as the foremost concern, with respondents pointing to AI-enabled fraud as a particularly acute challenge. Compliance with new regulation and the constraints of legacy infrastructure remain close behind, underlining the pressures that organisations face in maintaining trust and resilience while innovating at pace.
Despite these challenges, the outlook is strongly positive. AI, cross-border payments, real-time infrastructure, and embedded commerce are all seen as transformational opportunities, supported by increasing investment and a clear focus on digitalisation. Most respondents anticipate budget growth over the coming year, with emphasis on technology, partnerships, and workforce skills such as data analytics and cybersecurity. Taken together, the findings suggest an industry that is both pragmatic and optimistic, committed to building a payments landscape that is innovative, secure, and customer-centric.
This section outlines the scope of the survey, including methodology, participant demographics, and industry representation. It provides the context needed to understand the breadth and reliability of the insights.
54%
More than half of survey participants are based in the UK, providing strong insight into the domestic market while still reflecting a global perspective.
39%
Nearly two in five respondents hold C-level, VP, or Director roles, ensuring the findings capture the views of senior decision makers.
60%
The majority of respondents’ organisations count banks as customers, highlighting the central role of financial institutions in shaping industry priorities.
The 2025 State of the Industry survey reflects the views of 263 professionals across the global payments ecosystem. While the UK forms the largest share of respondents at 54%, the survey also draws strongly from Europe (19%) and the Americas (8%), with the remaining 19% representing the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. This geographical spread ensures the findings capture both domestic perspectives and international trends that are shaping the sector at large.
Leadership voices are well represented, with 39% of respondents holding senior positions such as c-level executive, vice president, or director. Their contributions provide a clear sense of strategic priorities at the top of organisations, balanced by the operational perspectives of managers and specialists who make up the majority of respondents. This blend helps to ground the results in both vision and practical reality.
Industry representation is similarly diverse. Technology and solution providers make up the largest segment at 21%, closely followed by professional services firms (20%) and banks or account providers (15%). The mix also includes merchants, acquirers, and other market participants, reflecting the interconnected nature of payments today. When asked about their customer base, respondents reported serving a wide spectrum: 60% work with banks, 48% with enterprises, 41% with merchants, and 28% with end consumers.
Finally, membership of The Payments Association is notable, with 61% of respondents drawn from within the Association and 39% from the wider industry. This balance offers both insider perspective and external validation, ensuring the survey captures the priorities, challenges, and opportunities seen by the community itself while remaining anchored in the broader market context. Together, these factors provide a strong foundation for interpreting the results that follow.
Region | Percentage |
|---|---|
Americas | 8% |
UK | 54% |
Europe | 19% |
Middle East | 4% |
Africa | 5% |
Asia | 7% |
Australia & Oceania | 3% |
Here we examine the most pressing issues facing the payments sector, from financial crime to regulatory change and legacy systems. The findings highlight where industry resilience is being tested most.
30%
The leading concern for the industry, with nearly one in three respondents highlighting the growing risks of cyber-attacks and AI-enabled fraud.
16%
Compliance pressures rank second, with inconsistent and fast-changing rules creating major hurdles for innovation.
13%
Keeping pace with technological change is the third most pressing challenge, as organisations struggle to modernise systems and processes.
Financial crime and cybersecurity threats are the greatest challenge facing the payments industry, with 30% of respondents selecting this option. This figure is almost double the next most cited concern – compliance with new regulation and policy at 16% – underlining the scale of unease around fraud, data breaches, and AI-enabled attacks. The results suggest that security has now overtaken regulation as the single biggest pressure point for organisations across the sector.
The findings also highlight important differences in perspective. Respondents in the C-suite are more likely to view compliance as the primary issue (21% vs 14% for non-C-suite), perhaps reflecting their closer involvement in governance and accountability. Non-C-suite respondents, however, are significantly more concerned about financial crime (32% vs 21%), pointing to the operational strain these threats place on day-to-day activity. Industry segmentation adds further nuance: among technology and solution providers, 27% see financial crime as the overriding concern, reflecting their reliance on trust, resilience, and secure infrastructure to remain competitive.
Taken together, the data paints a picture of an industry under sustained pressure on two fronts: the need to defend against increasingly sophisticated threats, while also navigating an ever-expanding regulatory landscape. Both demand investment, resources, and leadership focus, creating a tension that many organisations struggle to resolve.
This section explores where respondents see the greatest potential for growth and innovation. Topics include AI, cross-border payments, real-time infrastructure, and the evolution of embedded finance.
18%
Artificial intelligence is seen as the top opportunity, valued for its potential in fraud detection, automation, compliance, and customer experience.
12%
Cross-border payments rank second, reflecting demand for faster, cheaper, and more transparent international transactions.
12%
Real-time payments also stand out, underlying the industry’s drive for speed, efficiency, and seamless settlement.
The biggest opportunity in the payments sector is widely seen as AI, with respondents pointing to its potential to transform fraud detection, process automation, customer engagement, and operational efficiency. Its versatility makes it appealing across the value chain, from reducing costs and risk to delivering better customer outcomes.
Real-time and cross-border payments are close behind, each selected by 12% of respondents. These are viewed as essential for enabling a seamless, instant global economy where speed and transparency are paramount. Open banking and embedded commerce also feature strongly as enablers of interoperability, personalisation, and lower costs, while digital currencies and blockchain continue to attract interest for their potential in settlement and efficiency.
The results highlight a striking lack of consensus. While AI leads overall, only 18% of respondents placed it first, with personalisation, cross-border payments, embedded finance, and real-time infrastructure all clustering between 10% and 12%. This distribution suggests that industry growth will not hinge on one innovation alone, but on a portfolio of developments progressing in parallel.
Differences between groups add further depth. C-suite executives are more inclined to highlight personalisation and cross-border payments, reflecting strategic priorities, while non-C-suite respondents lean more heavily toward AI and its operational advantages. Technology and solution providers diverge further still: only 11% ranked AI highest, while embedded finance (19%), real-time payments (17%), and customer experience (15%) were more prominent. Such variation underscores that the payments sector is alive with opportunity, with the path forward defined by convergence rather than a single dominant trend.
Here we assess how organisations are prioritising technology adoption, budget allocation, and workforce skills. The results reveal where businesses are placing their bets for the future.
54%
More than half of respondents plan to adopt generative AI in the next 12-24 months, confirming its status as the dominant emerging technology in payments.
55%
A majority expect budgets to increase over the next year, signalling renewed confidence and appetite for investment despite wider economic pressures.
25%
One in four sees technical expertise as the most critical workforce skill for the next five years, ahead of customer experience, data analytics, and regulatory knowledge.
AI continues to dominate emerging technology priorities, with 54% of respondents planning to adopt generative AI in the next 12-24 months, slightly down from 57% last year. Machine learning, however, has dropped in priority, selected by only 15% compared to 23% in 2024. Blockchain (8%) and IoT (4%) remain low on the agenda, and interest in quantum computing is minimal at just 2%.
Spending intentions are notably more confident this year. Over half of respondents (55%) expect to increase their budgets – up from 49% last year – while only 9% expect a reduction. This indicates a strong appetite for investment, particularly in technological capabilities and digitalisation, which remains the top investment priority (45%). Partnerships and collaborations follow at 21%, while customer experience and acquisition investment have fallen to 11% from 20% in 2024.
When it comes to workforce skills, technical expertise has overtaken customer experience as the most critical area for the next five years (25% vs. 20%). Data analytics (19%), cybersecurity (13%), and regulatory knowledge (13%) also feature prominently, reflecting the complex demands of the modern payments landscape.
Despite the generally positive sentiment—75% have a positive or very positive outlook for the year ahead—the industry still faces familiar challenges. Cost and budget constraints remain the biggest barrier to innovation, followed by legacy infrastructure and internal resource limitations. These findings highlight the ongoing tension between ambition and execution as the sector looks to scale and modernise.
Financial constraints remain the most significant barrier to innovation, consistently ranked first for the past three years. Rising costs and tighter margins make it difficult for organisations to commit resources to large-scale transformation, even where the long-term benefits are clear. This tension highlights the gap between ambition and execution across the industry.
Outdated systems continue to weigh heavily on progress, often complicating integration and slowing adoption of new technologies. Many respondents note that legacy platforms increase both cost and risk, particularly when connecting with modern, real-time systems. This persistent challenge underscores the importance of investment in core infrastructure.
A shortage of skilled staff and organisational capacity is a growing concern. Respondents highlight that even with budget available, projects can stall without the right expertise or bandwidth. This has become a recurring issue as competition for talent in areas such as data analytics and cybersecurity intensifies.
Expanding new solutions effectively remains difficult, with many organisations struggling to move from pilot projects to enterprise-wide adoption. Constraints often stem from fragmented processes, system limitations, or stretched teams. As a result, scalability continues to act as a brake on innovation despite high interest in new approaches.
Justifying investment is still a barrier, particularly where benefits are indirect or long-term. Many firms struggle to translate innovation into clear financial returns, making it harder to secure buy-in at senior levels. This reinforces the need for vendors and internal teams alike to frame new solutions in terms of measurable outcomes.
A comparative view of survey findings across three years highlights shifting priorities and persistent challenges. This perspective helps track the industry’s direction of travel over time.
30%
Concern about financial crime and cybersecurity has grown from 21% in 2023 to 30% in 2025, overtaking compliance as the industry’s leading challenge.
16%
Regulatory concerns have eased, falling steadily from 25% in 2023 to just 16% in 2025, as firms adjust to policy requirements.
10%
Connected and embedded commerce has dropped sharply as a perceived opportunity, from 22% in 2023 to 10% in 2025, suggesting it is becoming more established rather than seen as disruptive.
Financial crime and cybersecurity remain the most pressing concerns for the payments sector, with apprehension rising from 21% in 2023 to 30% in 2025, overtaking compliance as the leading challenge in 2024. This upward trend reflects the intensifying threat landscape and the ongoing need for investment in fraud prevention and cyber resilience.
In contrast, compliance concerns have declined steadily over the same period, dropping from 25% in 2023 to 16% in 2025.
Regarding opportunities, connected and embedded commerce has seen a further decline in 2025, from 22% in 2023 to just 10%. A similar pattern is seen with open banking and real-time payments, both of which have seen reduced prominence; whether this indicates these technologies are becoming more established or less differentiated as competitive opportunities is unclear.
Barriers to innovation remain consistent, with cost and budget constraints firmly ranked as the top challenge for three years running. Internal resource issues, which surged in 2024, have fallen slightly to third place in 2025, while legacy infrastructure has re-emerged as the second most cited obstacle, highlighting ongoing struggles with outdated systems and integration complexities.
Despite these challenges, the outlook for the payments industry remains broadly positive. While the proportion of respondents describing their outlook as “positive” has dipped slightly from 60% in 2024 to 55% in 2025, there has been a small rebound in those feeling “very positive” (20%, up from 17% last year). With just 4% holding a negative view, overall sentiment remains upbeat, though tempered by the realities of operational and strategic constraints.
Barrier | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
Cost/budgets | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Internal resource | 4 | 2 | 3 |
Legacy infrastructure | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Scalability | 2 | 4 | 4 |
Developing a business case | 5 | 4 | 4 |
The PAY360 2025 State of the Industry survey highlights a sector that is both challenged and energised in equal measure. Financial crime, regulatory demands, and legacy systems remain pressing obstacles, yet the industry is responding with confidence, investment, and a strong focus on technology-led innovation. Success in the years ahead will depend on balancing resilience with progress, ensuring that transformation delivers secure, scalable, and customer-centric outcomes.
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