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Circle, the world’s second-biggest issuer of stablecoins, is examining ways to make it possible to reverse transactions involving its tokens, in a rare admission by a major crypto firm that it needs to take lessons from the traditional financial sector.

Circle president Heath Tarbert said a mechanism that allowed money to be refunded in cases of fraud or disputes would help the stablecoin industry’s push to become part of the financial mainstream.

From: Stablecoin issuer Circle examines ‘reversible’ transactions in departure for crypto.

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There’s pressure for better cross-border payments. Will stablecoins move the needle, when cryptocurrency did not? xxx

From: October25 – Birch – Cross-Border Payments—Stablecoins and Unstable Economies.

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These geopolitical and technological changes are reshaping the payments landscape, leading to increased regionalization and diversification. A return to the fully globalized payment systems of just five years ago seems unlikely, as the forces driving fragmentation are already in motion.

From: The 2025 Global Payments Report | McKinsey.

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These geopolitical and technological changes are reshaping the payments landscape, leading to increased regionalization and diversification. A return to the fully globalized payment systems of just five years ago seems unlikely, as the forces driving fragmentation are already in motion.

From: The 2025 Global Payments Report | McKinsey.

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While barter has been around forever, it’s mainly been informal. Many companies and organizations do use it as a regular part of their business dealings. The International Reciprocal Trade Association noted that participating businesses transacted approximately $12-14 billion globally in 2021, with that number expected to grow year after year.

From: How Bartering Can Help Increase Your Cash Flow.

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Against this backdrop, the payments industry remains the most valuable part of financial services, generating $2.5 trillion in revenue from $2.0 quadrillion in value flows, supported by 3.6 trillion transactions worldwide.

From: The 2025 Global Payments Report | McKinsey.

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“We know there’s a percentage [of customers] that want to pay directly with a bank account,” Joshua Karoly, director of payments product at Netflix, said during another session. Why that is may be personal preference, debt concerns with credit cards, or other issues, he says.

From his perspective, Karoly is not looking at pay by bank to cannibalize credit or debit card transactions. “I’m really looking to for this population that wants to pay with a bank account to enable them to pay with a bank account,” Karoly said.

From: Walmart’s Pay by Bank Project Remains on Track for 2025 – Digital Transactions.

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This project demonstrated that while it might be technically feasible to implement an offline payment functionality for a digital pound, there are trade-offs, particularly around user experience and preventing double spending and counterfeiting, that make implementing it challenging.
It showed that there are several technology choices that could be made for offline payments today, but those are dependent on policy choices, such as risk appetite, product proposition and liability, which impact the options available for mitigating security risks. No final decision has been made on whether an offline payment functionality would be implemented for a digital pound.

From: Digital pound experiment report: Offline payments | Bank of England.

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Rather than typing in a password, customers will instead be able to access their ANZ Plus Web Banking through two authentication methods: either by using a passkey, which could be their fingerprint, face or mobile device PIN, or by entering their mobile number and approving a log-in request sent to their secure ANZ Plus app.

From: ANZ scraps passwords for digital banking log-in.

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Key insight: QR codes streamline payments and onboarding while creating novel phishing attack surfaces.
What’s at stake: Fraud losses, identity theft and operational disruptions from undetected QR exploits.
Forward look: Prepare for industry-wide QR standards, signed codes and stronger MFA requirements.
Overview bullets generated by AI with editorial review

From: The promise and perils of QR codes in banking | American Banker.

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