PAY360 2026: building the multi-rail “motorway” for the future of payments

Stablecoins: from new toy to new infrastructure

In a panel on stablecoins, Thibault Pele, Global Head of Product Stablecoin at Worldline, shared a key point: stablecoins do not function in isolation. For stablecoin-based payments to work in real-world financial environments, as long as the bank’s systems are not on-chain native, the infrastructure around them must connect with existing banking and payment systems, such as SEPA. It also needs to support the operational capabilities financial institutions rely on: compliance, controls, liquidity management, FX, and treasury processes. This is why interoperability remains such a central topic: not only between stablecoins and traditional financial infrastructure, but also across blockchain networks, issuers, and different stablecoin tokens.

From a business perspective, two main value drivers stand out. First, stablecoins can reduce costs by removing intermediaries in certain payment flows. Second, their programmability enables new revenue opportunities through automation and innovative services. That said, ROI is difficult to assess when stablecoins are viewed in isolation. Their value is systemic, meaning it emerges when they are integrated into the broader payment stack. Success will depend on having a clear long-term vision and deploying stablecoin capabilities progressively across compliance, liquidity and FX, risk management, and day-to-day operations.

From a Worldline perspective, the winners will be those who seamlessly integrate new rails into their system landscapes and accurately pair use cases with the payment rails that serve them most effectively.

New payment rails: more choice, more complexity (and more pressure)

As part of the PAY360 event, Antonio Soares, Head of Business Development at Worldline Financial Services, recorded a podcast on new payment rails. What really stood out? The payments landscape is becoming more fragmented, with a growing mix of rails, from traditional systems to digital assets and wallets. This increases choice but also complexity, making interoperability essential. At the same time, expectations for system performance are rising. Real-time processing, higher volumes, and always-on availability are now baseline requirements, putting resilience under pressure.

Fraud is also evolving rapidly, requiring stronger controls and more adaptive detection. In parallel, sovereignty is gaining importance, with payments increasingly seen as critical national infrastructure and a focus on domestic control. As highlighted by Antonio at PAY360, the key challenge is modernizing payment systems while maintaining reliability, compliance, resilience, and trust.

AI in payments: from automation to orchestration

AI was one of the most prominent cross-cutting themes at PAY360, but notably, it was framed as an enabler rather than a standalone transformation driver.

AI in banks is currently used primarily for: internal processes, fraud detection and compliance.

However, discussions increasingly focused on what comes next. Several sessions explored a future where AI agents could initiate, validate, and process payments across different systems, effectively introducing an orchestration layer for payment flows. At the same time, AI is already reshaping fraud dynamics. While it is improving detection and monitoring, it is also being used by fraudsters to launch more sophisticated attacks. This raises the urgency for adaptive, real-time fraud systems. This is where AI-driven fraud prevention becomes critical: not just detecting anomalies, but continuously learning from behavioural patterns, transaction context, and cross-channel signals to identify emerging threats. In this context, AI is increasingly linked to orchestration and trust layers across payments, particularly in complex, multi-rail environments.

Fraud and verification: the UK is raising the baseline

One of the strongest signals at PAY360 was that verification and fraud prevention are no longer nice-to-have add-ons. In the UK, they are quickly becoming a baseline requirement. Pay.UK highlighted that Confirmation of Payee (CoP) has significantly reduced Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud where implemented and is now expanding to additional payment types. There’s also clear international interest, with Australia and Canada mentioned in discussions.

At the same time, the PSR’s mandatory reimbursement rules for APP fraud, with liability shared equally across sending and receiving firms, are changing the economics of operating in the UK. This pushes the industry towards better real-time fraud detection, stronger risk models and more robust controls across the payment journey.

Fraud prevention is therefore shifting from a standalone control function to an embedded capability across the payment lifecycle, increasingly supported by AI-driven risk analysis and real-time decisioning. Our takeaway is simple: fraud prevention can’t be bolted on. It must be built in, without adding so much friction that the customer experience suffers.

The wallet is becoming the identity layer

Another theme that came up repeatedly was the wallet evolving from “where I store payment methods” to “where I store who I am.” The idea of a single wallet that combines payments, loyalty and verified credentials is gaining traction, and the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet was often used as the reference point.

What’s really changing here is where competition sits in the payment processing industry. It’s moving “up the stack” from processing transactions to owning the trusted, permissioned customer relationship. However, this only works if trust and security are rock solid. Identity plus payments needs to be safe, scalable and compliant, otherwise it won’t stick.

This is where digital identity capabilities such as ID Wallet solutions become increasingly important, enabling secure onboarding, authentication, and trusted digital interactions across payment ecosystems.

Open Banking is evolving into Open Finance

The conversation around open banking has moved beyond simply accessing data. It’s about enabling action, and many framed that shift as the move toward open finance.

We heard that basic data access is becoming a commodity, and the real value sits in the services built on top. Commercial Variable Recurring Payments (CVRP) were discussed as a viable alternative to direct debits, offering greater transparency and easier management of recurring payments. A broader goal is emerging: open banking could serve as an overlay connecting multiple payment systems and schemes and eventually interact with stablecoins and AI-driven processes.

The multi-rail future requires strategic orchestration

No matter how advanced the technology gets—whether discussing stablecoins, AI agents, or digital identity—the baseline expectations remain unchanged. Payments must meet customers where they are, provide total transparency, and maintain ironclad security.

Ultimately, managing this expanding multi-rail ecosystem isn’t just a technical hurdle; it’s a strategic choice. Capitalizing on these new rails demands a partner capable of orchestrating this complexity into a seamless, resilient user experience.

At Worldline, we see this fragmentation as a powerful catalyst for growth. By bridging the gap between traditional financial systems and next-generation networks, we help financial institutions, merchants, and fintechs convert operational complexity into a distinct competitive advantage—building the trusted, future-proof solutions tomorrow's market demands.