Payments as strategic infrastructure
What's inside this report
The businesses scaling across Asia-Pacific today aren't constrained by their ability to move money. They're constrained by their ability to see it, understand it, and act on it in real time across multiple currencies, countries, and entities.
This industry report, produced in collaboration with the Emerging Payments Association Asia (EPAA), examines the critical gap between what modern payments infrastructure can deliver and what organizations are actually leveraging for competitive advantage.
Based on expert roundtables in Sydney and Singapore, featuring practitioners from leading financial institutions, fintechs, payment networks, and platform providers, this research identifies six critical patterns shaping the future of payments maturity in the APAC region:
6 Critical themes shaping payments strategy
- Payments is moving to the leadership table.
- The adoption gap is an economics problem, not a capability problem. Infrastructure exists, but organisations need measurable commercial outcomes to justify transformation.
- Regulation: Frameworks must evolve with the models they govern, particularly in cross-border and embedded finance contexts.
- Payments data has expanded, but most organisations still use it retrospectively rather than predictively.
- Payments are now seen as a revenue lever, but system fragmentation and interoperability gaps cap the commercial potential.
- Trust Must Be Engineered into Architecture
Who should read this report
This research delivers actionable insights for payments and finance leaders navigating the shift from infrastructure to intelligence:
- CFOs & Treasurers
- Chief Payments Officers & Heads of Payments
- Product & Platform Leaders
- Regulators & Policy Makers
- Financial Institutions & Fintechs