Update on the Payments landscape – February 2026
The payments landscape continues to evolve and this blog shares some of the topics that caught my attention during the last three months. If you think I’ve missed anything important, do please send an email to technical@treasurers.org.
Interesting news and reports
- Verification of Payee (VOP) came into force in October 2025 across the SEPA zone to improve the safeguarding of digital transactions—ensuring payee details are verified in real-time to prevent fraud and misdirected payments. It has been considered a success with almost 3,000 PSPs participating in the scheme.
- Global Payments completed its acquisition of Worldpay from FIS and GTCR. It transforms the Atlanta-based firm into a pure commerce solutions provider, with the new entity serving 6 million merchant locations across more than 175 countries processing approximately 94 billion transactions and US$3.7tn in payment volume annually.
- Linklaters published its Financial Regulation Legal Outlook 2026. The payments section focuses on:
- the changing role and use of regulation in the political landscape
- regulation for the management of risk and the control of instability
- the need for regulation to keep pace with rapid technological change
- Agentic commerce is becoming increasingly topical as consumers and businesses use agentic tools to help them navigate and optimise their buying decisions. In this interesting report from Visa, they explore what this means in practice.
- Wero, commercialised by the European Payment Initiative (EPI), is making good progress with 50 banks in France, Belgium and Germany now supporting live transactions.
- The European Payments Council published its 2025 update of the Payment Threats and Fraud Trends Report. Key topics covered include:
- significant attacks and fraud modus operandi observed last year by the EPC community
- the impact of AI on both attackers and defenders in the payments ecosystem
- the ways in which threats affect payment processes—including Onboarding, Payment Request, Initiation, Authentication, and Execution
Naresh Aggarwal
17 February 2026
