28 April 2025
by Payments Intelligence
What is this article about?
Key insights from the PAY360 2025 survey on current challenges and opportunities in the payments sector.
Why is it important?
It highlights how industry leaders are prioritising AI, cross-border payments, and digital currencies while grappling with regulatory, technological, and customer demands.
What’s next?
Payments organisations must balance immediate operational priorities with emerging long-term strategies, particularly around sustainability and innovation.
New analysis from The Payments Association’s PAY360 2025 survey, which includes insights from over 6,500 registrants gathered during Q1 2025, highlights the key challenges and opportunities shaping the payments sector this year.
Payments Intelligence data reveals that open banking, cross-border payments, and digital currencies have emerged as top areas of interest among industry professionals. Notably, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives remain a lower priority, suggesting that immediate operational and technological concerns are taking precedence over longer-term sustainability goals.
The survey’s strength lies in its diverse respondent base, comprising decision-makers across all organisational levels, from directors to managers and executives. This breadth of representation ensures the 2025 findings capture the perspectives of key stakeholders across the payments ecosystem, reinforcing PAY360’s standing as the UK’s largest dedicated payments conference and a trusted barometer for industry trends.
This report explores the evolving operational challenges and emerging innovation opportunities that will shape strategic decisions for payment professionals in the year ahead, providing actionable insights for navigating an increasingly complex market landscape.
The PAY360 2025 survey demonstrates remarkable reach and representation, gathering insights from 6,578 payments professionals across 3,303 companies and 93 countries worldwide. This comprehensive industry perspective draws strength from its diverse participant profile, with 32% at VP/director/head level, 26% at manager level, and a significant 25% holding C-level or founder positions. Such balanced representation ensures the findings reflect views from multiple organisational tiers, enhancing the survey’s credibility as a trusted barometer for payment industry trends.
Further analysis reveals the survey’s impressive sectoral coverage spanning 70 distinct industries, with technology and solution providers (19%) leading participation, followed by professional services (17%), banking (12%) and card industry (11%). While the United Kingdom dominates geographically with 86% of respondents, valuable international perspectives have been captured from markets including the United States, France, Ireland, Spain and many more. This robust demographic foundation underpins the reliability of the 2025 findings and positions this piece of payments intelligence as an authoritative resource for payment professionals navigating market dynamics.
The PAY360 2025 survey highlights a payments industry facing a wide distribution of operational pressures, with no single issue overwhelmingly dominant.
Understanding what the customer wants, keeping up with digital transformation, and compliance with new regulation and policy each account for 11% of responses, indicating that organisations are being pulled equally across customer expectations, technological advancement, and regulatory demands.
Implementing new payment methods follows closely at 10%, showing that the introduction of innovative payment systems continues to challenge firms.
Financial crime and cyber security threats are identified by 9% of respondents, underlining the importance of maintaining robust defences as digital payments expand. These figures suggest that while innovation is critical, securing and adapting systems remains a major operational priority.
Other challenges are less prominent but still noteworthy. Streamlining backend infrastructure and processes was cited by 6% of participants, suggesting operational efficiency remains a secondary concern.
Wider macro-economic downturns and shifts received 3% of responses, indicating that although economic conditions are being monitored, they are currently considered a less immediate threat compared to internal technological and regulatory demands.
The interactive map below illustrates PAY360’s global reach across 93 countries, with colour-coded indicators highlighting regional challenges in compliance rates and adoption trends. Users can hover over specific territories to access detailed market insights, regulatory status updates, implementation barriers, and critical intervention points that registrants face within each jurisdiction.
Compliance with regulation has emerged as the dominant challenge across multiple regions, including the UK (11%), Switzerland (15%) and Cyprus (20%), marking a significant shift from 2024. Implementing new payment methods remains critical in emerging markets, with Costa Rica (83%), Mali (80%) and Brazil (64%) reporting this as their primary concern.
Financial crime and cyber security threats have gained prominence particularly in Algeria (100%), the US (23%) and Czech Republic (40%).
Regional patterns show that Eastern Europe focuses on security concerns, while Latin American nations prioritise payment innovation. The UK’s transition from payment implementation to regulatory compliance suggests increasing regulatory pressures in established markets.
The PAY360 2025 survey highlights AI as the clear leading opportunity within the payments sector, identified by 19% of respondents. AI’s central role reflects its growing impact on operational efficiency, fraud detection, and compliance automation, marking it as a transformative technology across multiple areas of the payments ecosystem.
Cross-border payments remain the second most significant opportunity, cited by 11% of industry professionals. The ongoing focus on frictionless international transactions underscores the continued importance of building efficient, resilient global payment networks.
Real-time payments and digital currencies follow, each identified by 8% of respondents. Their positioning suggests a stable, if slightly more specialised, interest in instant settlement capabilities and regulated digital asset integration.
Other areas of innovation show lower but still meaningful traction, with respondents continuing to recognise the potential of open finance and embedded financial services despite slower immediate uptake.
Open banking is recognised by 7% of participants, while connected and embedded commerce and digital wallets each captured 6%. These figures suggest that while open finance initiatives and embedded financial services remain on the radar, they are less immediate priorities compared to the transformational potential of AI and international payment innovation.
Users can explore financial technology trends, identify promising investment regions and discover emerging markets by hovering over the map below and zooming into specific regions where innovative payment solutions could address significant unmet needs in 2025.
As cited in top-level opportunities, AI as the dominant opportunity for 2025, identified by payment professionals across 76 countries, including major markets like the UK (19%), US (19%), and Germany (30%). This represents significant growth in AI confidence compared to the 2024 PAY360 data.
Cross-border payments emerge as the second most recognised opportunity, highlighted by 44 countries, reflecting persistent demand for seamless international transactions in an increasingly integrated global economy.
Digital currencies show substantial growth as a payment opportunity, identified by 41 countries, signalling an industry shift from viewing cryptocurrencies as a speculative asset to legitimate payment innovations.
Other notable trends include the continued relevance of open banking in specific markets, expanding real-time payment solutions, digital wallet adoption in emerging economies, and embedded commerce opportunities. Some countries maintained a strategic focus from 2024 to 2025, suggesting longer-term transformation initiatives rather than reactive market approaches.
The PAY360 2025 survey reveals a continuation and sharpening of several key trends observed in 2024, as the payments industry refines its strategic focus.
AI has strengthened its dominance as the leading opportunity, rising from 25% in 2024 to 29% in 2025. This growth underscores the sector’s accelerating reliance on AI-driven capabilities, particularly in operational efficiency, fraud prevention, and compliance automation.
Cross-border payments maintained their position, cited by 17% of respondents in both years. The consistency suggests sustained, but not significantly expanded, momentum for improving international payment infrastructures.
Digital currencies have gained modest ground, increasing from 10% in 2024 to 12% in 2025. This rise reflects growing regulatory maturity and practical adoption of digital assets, particularly in jurisdictions advancing central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiatives or crypto-friendly frameworks.
Meanwhile, other areas show contraction:
The PAY360 2025 survey reveals a continuation and sharpening of several key trends observed in 2024, as the payments industry refines its strategic focus.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has strengthened its dominance as the leading opportunity, rising from 25% in 2024 to 29% in 2025. This growth underscores the sector’s accelerating reliance on AI-driven capabilities, particularly in operational efficiency, fraud prevention, and compliance automation.
Cross-border payments maintained their position, cited by 17% of respondents in both years. The consistency suggests sustained, but not significantly expanded, momentum for improving international payment infrastructures.
Digital currencies have gained modest ground, increasing from 10% in 2024 to 12% in 2025. This rise reflects growing regulatory maturity and practical adoption of digital assets, particularly in jurisdictions advancing central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiatives or crypto-friendly frameworks.
Meanwhile, other areas show contraction:
The PAY360 2025 survey reveals a significant shift towards specialisation within the payments ecosystem, with AI emerging as the dominant opportunity across the majority of sectors.
AI is cited as the leading opportunity across industries such as banking and account providers (14%), the card industry (15%), financial crime and compliance services (39%), and technology and solution providers (27%). This widespread adoption highlights AI’s role as a cross-sector transformational force, particularly valued for enhancing operational efficiency, risk management, and regulatory compliance.
Some industries, however, maintained a distinct strategic focus. Cross-border payments firms identified cross-border payments as their primary growth opportunity (42%), while digital assets and crypto organisations prioritised digital currencies (41%). Open banking specialists continued to champion open banking as their core area of opportunity, with 46% of respondents selecting it—the highest single-sector alignment in the survey.
On the challenges side, sector-specific concerns are becoming more pronounced. Compliance with new regulation and policy emerged as the leading challenge for industries such as banking, digital assets and crypto, and open banking. Meanwhile, the financial crime and compliance services sector identified financial crime and cybersecurity threats as their most significant obstacle (37%). Sectors like gift and loyalty, Payments industry suppliers, and technology providers placed stronger emphasis on understanding customer needs.
Merchants remained an outlier, with real-time payments (8%) as their top opportunity and implementing new payment methods as their primary concern (11%), highlighting a more operationally focused priority set.
Analysis of the survey data by seniority level shows a strong alignment across leadership tiers in recognising Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the industry’s principal opportunity. C-level and founder respondents were the most enthusiastic, with 23% identifying AI as the greatest opportunity, followed by VP/director/head level respondents at 18%, and managers at 17%.
Despite this broad consensus on AI’s potential, perceptions of the greatest challenges varied more noticeably. C-level and founders most frequently cited implementing new payment methods (14%) as their primary challenge, reflecting a strategic concern with innovation execution. Managers, meanwhile, focused on understanding what the customer wants (12%), indicating a more operational and customer-facing set of priorities. VP/director/head respondents primarily identified compliance with new regulation and policy (12%) as their greatest challenge, reflecting regulatory pressures at mid-to-senior management levels.
The payments industry is at a pivotal point, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) now established as the dominant opportunity across the sector. Levels of enthusiasm vary by segment, but AI’s role in operational transformation is undisputed. At the same time, regulatory compliance has emerged as the primary challenge, particularly in mature markets, signalling a significant shift in industry priorities.
Regional variations are pronounced. Eastern European markets prioritise security, Latin American territories focus on payment innovation, and mature economies grapple with increasingly complex regulatory requirements. Cross-border payments remain a major opportunity, while digital currencies are now being accepted more widely as legitimate payment mechanisms rather than speculative investments.
Across the sector, organisations are concentrating on immediate operational needs, with less emphasis placed on long-term sustainability initiatives. This tactical focus reflects how resources are being directed towards current technological and regulatory demands. However, as regulatory frameworks continue to evolve, sustainability considerations are likely to become increasingly critical. Payments organisations may need to rebalance their strategies to address both near-term imperatives and longer-term transformations that will shape the industry’s future landscape.
This report presents data-driven insights from a major industry survey, highlighting the key trends, risks, and priorities shaping payments in 2025.
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