Based on 7,595 PAY360 delegate responses and 115 MT360 merchants, this report provides a comprehensive view of who the audience is, the challenges they face and the opportunities they prioritise, revealing how perspectives shift across industry, seniority, decision-making role and predicted spend.
PAY360 2026 provides the most comprehensive view of payments industry sentiment to date, based on 7,595 delegate responses and a dedicated merchant dataset (MT360, n=115).
The findings point to a market that is not converging on a single agenda, but instead diverging along three defining axes:
The 2026 dataset reveals four structural dynamics shaping the payments landscape:
AI is the most cited opportunity overall (29%), but its importance declines among higher-spend organisations, where more immediate commercial priorities dominate.
It is the leading challenge across the dataset and shows the strongest alignment with AI, indicating a clear link between risk pressure and technology investment.
Selected by 60% of delegates, it is the most consistently prioritised theme across industries, roles and geographies.
MT360 delegates focus on operational challenges, led by fraud (30%), rather than the broader opportunity-led framing seen across PAY360 respondents.
A clear divide emerges between:
This tension is most visible when comparing:
cite AI as the biggest opportunity
select cross-border as a topic of interest
of those citing financial crime also select AI
of MT360 delegates cite fraud as their primary challenge
How the PAY360 and Merchant Transact 360 2026 survey data was collected, segmented and validated across 7,710 respondents.
Survey responses were captured at the point of registration for both PAY360 and MT360 in 2026. Respondents completed the survey as part of the event registration process, making the data a direct reflection of the attending audience rather than a post-event recall exercise.
The PAY360 survey produced 7,595 valid responses. MT360, a merchant-focused sub-event running alongside PAY360, produced 115 valid responses. These two populations are treated as entirely separate throughout this report. Their question sets differ in part, and their findings are never combined.
All data is self-reported. Figures relating to predicted payment spend, job function and seniority reflect respondent classification at the time of registration. Where question response rates fall below the total respondent count, denominators are stated explicitly.
The main conference population, capturing 7,595 valid responses at registration across 13 industry categories, six seniority levels and more than 25 countries. Treated as the primary data set throughout this report and never combined with MT360 data.
A merchant-focused sub-event running alongside PAY360, producing 115 valid responses at registration. MT360 delegates completed a partially distinct question set and are treated as an entirely separate population throughout this report.
Across both events, 7,710 valid responses were collected from 9,643 raw data rows, with approximately 1,933 records excluded due to no valid survey response. Every figure traces back to one of the two populations above.
PAY360 and MT360 respondents are identified using a clean binary rule applied to the raw data. Any respondent with at least one affirmative response across the MT360-specific question columns is classified as an MT360 delegate. All remaining valid respondents are classified as PAY360. There is no overlap between the two groups.
Of 9,643 raw rows in the source data, approximately 1,933 were excluded on the basis of no valid survey response, leaving 7,710 usable respondents in total. PAY360 accounts for 7,595 of these; MT360 accounts for 115.
Within each population, respondents are further segmented by seniority, job function, industry, geography, predicted spend and decision-making role. Where cross-tabulations produce cells with fewer than 30 respondents in PAY360 data or fewer than 15 in MT360 data, findings are presented as directional rather than definitive.
A profile of who attended PAY360 and MT360 in 2026, covering seniority, industry, geography, decision-making authority and predicted spend.
PAY360 draws professionals from across the full payments value chain. Tech and solutions providers form the largest industry group at 21%, followed by professional services (15%) and banking (14%). The seniority mix skews senior: nearly six in ten respondents hold a C-Level, Director, VP, Head or Founder title. Business development is the dominant job function at 43%, reflecting the commercial orientation of the event.
Merchant Transact 360 (n=115) presents a more concentrated industry profile. Tech and solutions providers account for 30% of delegates and payments suppliers for 17%, together representing nearly half the MT360 population. The seniority profile is broadly comparable to PAY360, though “Other” is larger at 26%, suggesting more varied role titles in merchant organisations. Business development again leads at 37%, with product roles more prominent than in PAY360 at 17%. MT360 figures are directional given the smaller sample.
More than 2,000 PAY360 respondents identified as budget holders, the highest category of purchasing authority. A further 9% identified as buyers, placing roughly 2,600 individuals with direct purchasing influence in the room. Influencers account for 30% and information gatherers for 25%.
Budget holder concentration is strongest among Founders at 63% and C-Level executives at 57%, dropping sharply to 21% at Director level and 4% among Managers. Seniority is therefore a reliable signal of purchasing authority only at the top of the hierarchy.
Among MT360 delegates (n=115), influencers form the largest group at 38%, followed by budget holders at 31%, information gatherers at 21% and buyers at 10%. The influencer-heavy profile suggests MT360 delegates skew towards those shaping purchasing decisions rather than holding budgets directly. MT360 spend data is not presented; the distribution is too thin to report reliably.
Challenges, opportunities and priorities across 7,595 PAY360 delegates and 115 Merchant Transact 360 delegates, segmented by industry, seniority, decision-making role and predicted spend.
Customer understanding is the leading named challenge for PAY360 delegates in 2026, cited by 16% of respondents. New payment methods (14%) and digital transformation (14%) follow closely. Regulation and compliance ranks fourth overall at 12%, though it rises among professional services firms alongside digital transformation at 18%.
Industry shapes priorities markedly. Cross-border specialists are nearly twice as likely as the average delegate to cite new payment methods as their biggest challenge at 24%. Banking skews towards digital transformation and financial crime. Tech and solutions providers lead on customer understanding at 18%.
Among budget holders, new payment methods and customer understanding are tied as the top challenge at 18% each, reflecting the commercial pressures facing the most purchasing-active audience segment.
MT360 delegates (n=115) broadly mirror the PAY360 picture, with customer understanding again leading at 20%, though financial crime and cyber registers more prominently at 11%.
AI is the standout opportunity for PAY360 delegates in 2026, cited by 29% of respondents as their biggest opportunity ahead. Cross-border follows at 14%, with real-time payments (9%), digital currencies (11%) and open banking (7%) forming a secondary tier. The AI dominance is consistent across decision-making roles, though budget holders show the strongest conviction at 32%.
Industry shapes the opportunity landscape markedly. Cross-border specialists are decisively focused, with 48% citing cross-border as their top opportunity. Banking skews towards digital currencies at 14%. Tech and solutions providers and professional services firms align most closely with the overall AI consensus at 37% and 41% respectively.
The co-occurrence data reveals the sharpest insight: respondents who cite financial crime as their biggest challenge favour AI as their opportunity at 51%, the highest pairing in the dataset. Among those citing new payment methods as their challenge, cross-border emerges as the top opportunity at 23%.
MT360 delegates (n=115) broadly mirror the PAY360 picture, with AI leading at 29% and cross-border second at 10%.
Cross-border and digital currencies are the joint leading topics of interest for PAY360 delegates in 2026, selected by 61% and 60% respectively. Open banking follows closely at 59%, with regulations at 51% and financial crime at 42% rounding out the top five. As a multi-select question, percentages sum above 100% and reflect agenda interests across the event rather than a single priority per respondent.
Industry shapes topic interest sharply. Cross-border specialists are almost unanimous in their interest in cross-border payments at 92%. Professional services and banking firms show the strongest interest in regulations at 61% and 53% respectively, while banking leads on digital currencies at 69%. ESG registers consistently low across all five industries, peaking at 28% among professional services.
Among decision-making roles, digital currencies and cross-border attract the highest raw engagement across all four groups, with influencers and budget holders generating the largest absolute counts. ESG is the lowest-interest topic across every role.
MT360 delegates show a broadly similar ordering, with financial crime leading at 42%, followed by open banking (39%) and digital currencies (37%). Regulations and financial inclusion register lower than in PAY360, suggesting a more operationally focused agenda among merchant-side attendees. MT360 figures are directional given the smaller sample.
Payment spend band shapes challenge and opportunity priorities in ways that cut against the overall PAY360 picture. New payment methods is the dominant challenge among higher-spending delegates, cited by 28% of those predicting £10 million or more in spend and 22% of the £15 million-plus band—well above the 14% overall figure. AI as the leading opportunity is notably weaker among the highest spenders. Just 26% of £15 million-plus delegates cite it, compared with 35% among those predicting up to £1 million.
Cross-border emerges as the standout opportunity for high-value segments. Among the £10 million-plus band it ranks as the top opportunity at 27%, significantly above the 14% overall average. Digital currencies and cross-border consistently dominate topic interest across all spend bands.
The decision-making profile shifts markedly by spend. Among those predicting up to £1 million, nearly half identify as budget holders. The £15 million-plus band skews heavily towards influencers at 47%, suggesting larger organisations distribute purchasing authority across broader teams. The “Not sure” group—63% of all PAY360 respondents—over-indexes on information gatherers at 29%, consistent with earlier-stage buyers. All spend figures are self-reported forward-looking estimates and should be treated as indicative.
PAY360 2026 attracted 1,017 more survey responses than 2025, a 15% increase in dataset size that strengthens the reliability of year-on-year comparisons. The broad direction of travel is clear: challenges have intensified across almost every named category, while AI has consolidated its position as the dominant opportunity by a wider margin than in any previous year.
Customer understanding has risen most sharply as a challenge, from 11% in 2025 to 16% in 2026. New payment methods and digital transformation have followed a similar trajectory, both up by around four percentage points. Regulation and compliance remains broadly stable. On the opportunity side, AI has jumped from 19% to 29%, cross-border from 11% to 14% and digital currencies from 8% to 11%. Embedded commerce and digital wallets are flat.
All figures in this section relate exclusively to MT360 delegates and should be treated as directional given the smaller sample. MT360 delegates completed a distinct question set covering payments infrastructure, operational priorities and current challenges not asked of PAY360 respondents.
Fraud prevention is the standout payment priority at 29%, followed by speed of checkout at 26% and conversion rates at 18%. This operational focus is consistent with the current challenge data, where fraud rates lead at 30%, ahead of regulatory compliance at 20% and technical integration at 19%. Cards remain the dominant payment method at 68%, with digital wallets a clear second at 50%. A2A and pay by bank registers at 32%, suggesting meaningful merchant-side awareness of account-to-account payments.
Infrastructure setup is broadly distributed, with single PSP the most common at 25%, followed by hybrid (21%), orchestration platform (19%), in-house (18%) and multiple PSPs (17%). Infrastructure choice shapes both challenge and priority profiles. Single PSP merchants indicate a notably high rate of regulatory compliance as their current challenge at 48%, while orchestration platform and in-house merchants tend towards fraud rates as their primary concern. Speed of checkout dominates as the priority for simpler setups; fraud prevention rises sharply among more complex infrastructure arrangements. Cross-tabulation figures should be read as directional only given cell sizes.
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