Mastercard has held an ‘African Edge Summit’ to accelerate Africa’s digital payments. The event focused on building infrastructure, and interoperability with a focus on consumers and small businesses with representatives from banks, fintech companies, telcos, regulators and technology partners.

Meta has added a QR code-based payments option to the WhatsApp Business App in India, allowing small businesses to share QR codes in one tap so that customers can pay directly within WhatsApp using their preferred payment method.

A year ago, payments expert Jeremy Light started a substack called ‘Agenda: Payments’ with the aim of helping readers around the world keep track of national payment landscapes and payment themes. He has recently posted data on reader response to 50 articles written across nine broad categories, giving an indication of where their focus and interest lie.

Following the announcement by the US Treasury that it has begun the process of phasing out production of the one cent (penny) coin, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta published an article on its Policy Hub: Macroblog on the topic.

In Brazil, hackers have gained access to funds worth BRL 800 million ($148 million), held in accounts at the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB). They achieved this by exploiting the valid credentials of an employee associated with the BCB’s instant payment network Pix. The implications and consequences of this incident have led to doubts about the cybersecurity of Brazil’s financial system.

At the end of August, concerns about PayPal’s security system led to €10 billion worth of payments being suspended in Germany, according to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

A new Japanese survey has found that the most common method for cashless payments is to use a barcode or QR code displayed on a smartphone, with 84.2% of people using one.

Five big banks in Belgium have joined the European Payments Initiative (EPI) with the intention of rolling out the Wero digital wallet and instant account-to-account (A2A) payment application to customers in the first half of next year.

A new paper from the SUERF, the European Money and Finance Forum, explains that the rising systemic importance of Non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs), is sharply increasing the need for central banks to intervene to stabilise financial systems as banks become less able to provide liquidity.

Pakistan’s 2025-2026 federal budget marks a decisive policy pivot toward cultivating a digitally empowered, future-oriented financial landscape.