CBPN Latest News
Digital Payments
The Shift Towards Faster, Inclusive Payments in South Africa
In August 2025, BankservAfrica rebranded as PayInc, signalling a decisive shift and commitment to the future of faster, digital payments. Building on more than 50 years of facilitating payments, the organisation, in its role as a national payments utility, has developed a sharp focus on purposeful p...
Financial Inclusion
Digital Public Infrastructure for Financial Inclusion: Digital ID and eKYC in the SADC Region
As part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat’s Strategy on Financial Inclusion and SMEs Access to Finance 2023–2028, FinMark Trust is leading the implementation of a SADC-wide electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) and identity and information sharing framework and the esta...
ISO 20022
ISO 20022: A New Era in Global Payments Infrastructure
The payments industry in the U.S. reached a significant milestone this summer with the successful migration to the ISO® 20022 messaging format for the Fedwire® Funds Service. This achievement marks the culmination of years of coordinated effort and preparation by the Federal Reserve, financial insti...
Agentic Payments
Pioneering Agentic Payments Technology to Power Commerce in the Age of AI
Mastercard is working with Microsoft, and other companies including AI platforms, to integrate Microsoft’s leading AI technologies with Mastercard’s trusted payment solutions to develop and scale Agentic commerce, addressing the evolving needs of the entire commerce value chain. Grounded by the comp...
Interview
In Conversation with the Central Bank of Oman's Ali Al Jabri
Central Bank Payments News speaks with Ali Al Jabri, Acting Deputy CTO for Payment Systems at the Central Bank of Oman. The conversation, facilitated with the support of ProgressSoft, explores the strategies and partnerships shaping Oman’s payments ecosystem under the country’s Vision 2040 agenda
Fraud
Closing the Context Gaps: How to Fight Crime While Protecting Privacy in Payment Systems
Visa’s David Sutton explores how privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), such as those developed by Featurespace, can close critical context gaps and help build safer, privacy-preserving payment systems
Cross-Border Payments
The Mission-Critical Role of Central Banks for the Adoption of the Data Standard for Legal Entities — the LEI — for Cross-Border Payments and Trade Finance and Statistics
In this article from Gerard Hartsink, Senior Advisor at the International Chamber of Commerce, suggestions are given how the major players of the cross-border payments and trade finance industry, with support of their Financial Market Infrastructures and trade associations, could jointly create a b...
Cross-Border Payments
The Role of AFAQ in Improving Cross-Border Payments in the GCC
The Gulf Payments Company paved the way for regional payment services integration by means of a specialised, publicly owned “payments infrastructure company.” In this article, CEO Ali Alhomidan shares his experiences with this approach for the benefit of those who are considering similar approaches....
Financial Inclusion
Closing the Gap in Access to Banking Across New Zealand
Tom Bayliss, Principal Adviser of Financial Inclusion, and Swastika Singh, Senior Adviser of Financial Inclusion, at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand – Te Pūtea Matua, take us through their financial inclusion work programme focused on access to basic transaction accounts. This work complements the e...
In This Issue: November 2025
- PayInc's Ruhling Herbst shares how South Africa's newly designated National Payments Utility (formerly known as BankservAfrica) is poised to spearhead the country's digital payments (R)evolution and bring accessible and inclusive payments to all South Africans
- Shonda Clay, EVP & Chief Product and Relationship Officer with Federal Reserve Financial Services, provides an update on the Fed's ISO 20022 adoption journey and its future plans for unlocking the full benefits of the data-rich messaging format
- Damola Owolade, Head of FinMark Trust's Southern African Development Community (SADC) Financial Inclusion Programme, offers a detailed look at efforts to develop 1) a SADC-wide eKYC and identity & information sharing framework, and 2) a regional, integrated eKYC registry for SADC member states
- In our Industry Profile, Andrew Reiskind, Jesse McWaters, and Hélio Vale highlight how the rise of agentic commerce has introduced new challenges to the payments ecosystem and what Mastercard and its partners are doing to build the standards and tools that will define the era of aCommerce
- Plus the latest industry hires and promotions, a comprehensive roundup of recent reports, must-read speeches and presentations from payments leaders, and more!
