The global financial services industry is at a pivotal moment. Faster ways to move money, evolving customer expectations, and rapid advances in artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology are transforming how banking operates. Over the next five to ten years, financial institutions must evolve beyond processing transactions to become smarter, continuously operating platforms that learn over time within an increasingly networked financial ecosystem. In this session, we’ll explore how banks can stay competitive with fintechs and technology companies by enabling instant, secure, and seamless payments while also unlocking the power of data to deliver insights that help clients combat fraud, grow their businesses, and improve working capital management.

Digital wallets are rapidly becoming the primary interface for consumer spending, digital identity, loyalty and emerging real-time and tokenized payment rails. As the financial industry moves into 2026, the acceleration of wallet adoption is no longer a trend at the margins—it’s reshaping the economics, customer relationships, and competitive dynamics of retail and commercial banking. This panel brings together leaders from banking, payments, fintech, and big tech to unpack what’s driving the surge and how banks must respond.

The panel will delve into the drivers behind wallet dominance, the shift from card rails to platform- and real-time-centric payments, how wallets are rewriting the bank-customer relationship, and the strategic implications for banks and the priority to establish wallet-first customer strategies. Bankers will leave with a clear understanding of the forces accelerating digital wallet adoption, the threats and opportunities it creates for banks, and a pragmatic framework for building wallet-ready capabilities and partnerships that strengthen customer engagement rather than weaken it.

Hear directly from industry leaders as they take the stage with a client partner to share the real story behind a successful collaboration. These sessions move beyond theory, offering a candid look at the challenges faced, the strategies deployed, and the measurable results achieved.

Together, the partners will walk through how their organizations worked side-by-side to solve complex problems, implement new ideas, and drive meaningful outcomes. Expect practical insights, lessons learned, and proven approaches you can apply within your own organization.

Agentic commerce is revolutionizing the digital shopping experience. Walmart, Shopify, Etsy and others are offering ChatGPT-enabled shopping via the instant checkout features on their platforms. Things are just getting started: AI-driven agents are rapidly moving from assisting transactions to autonomously initiating and managing them—ushering in the era of agentic payments. In this new model, intelligent software can negotiate prices, trigger payments, rebalance liquidity, and settle obligations across networks without human input. For banks and payment providers, this represents both a technological and strategic inflection point: How do you design infrastructure, compliance, and customer interfaces for a world where payments are executed by autonomous agents 24/7?

This session explores the convergence of AI, real-time settlement, and tokenized money—and what it means for banks, processors, and networks as they prepare for a future of machine-to-machine commerce and self-directed financial flows. Agentic commerce will push banks and payments providers to evolve security in a number of ways, too, including more authentication and fraud prevention practices and shifting a merchant-focused business model to a consumer-facing one. Our panel will discuss how payment players need to enable the right agents to transact for customers, the shift from subscription models and card-on-file payments from merchants to consumer agents, and rethinking how they acquire new customers while retaining top-of-wallet status among consumers who are increasingly evaluating products through an agent.

Real-time payments are expected to generate $173 billion in additional economic output this year, according to the Center for Economic and Business Research. Cross-border payments are entering their “real-time era”—and in 2026 the biggest opportunity for banks is to evolve from slow, fee-driven intermediaries into 24/7 liquidity, settlement, and compliance hubs. This panel explores how banks can capture new revenue and deepen client relationships by delivering instant cross-border settlement, richer data, and embedded treasury capabilities—while maintaining trust, control, and regulatory-grade risk management.

The panelists will debate where banks can lead versus where they will be disintermediated, and which technologies will determine who wins the next generation of global payments. Key to this: Interoperability infrastructure—the combination of ISO 20022 + APIs + real-time compliance automation, increasingly paired with tokenized settlement rails, including stablecoins and blockchain-based networks. The discussion will include:

• Why the real opportunity isn’t “faster wires,” but always-on settlement and liquidity services
• The race to become the cross-border orchestration layer for corporates, fintechs, and marketplaces
• Where tokenization and stablecoin settlement will matter most—and where it won’t
• The role of ISO 20022, APIs, and data richness in enabling automation and scale
• Why AI-driven AML/fraud and sanctions screening becomes mission-critical in real time
• What a winning 2026 strategy looks like: corridors, partnerships, pricing, and operating model

Join American Banker and Fiserv for a discussion of new research quantifying the state of digital payments maturity across U.S. banks and credit unions. Based on a blind survey of 381 financial institution leaders, the study introduces a Digital Payments Maturity Index benchmarking institutions across 20 capabilities, from foundational services to instant payments, ISO 20022 compliance and stablecoin enablement.

The research shows clear differences in digital maturity across institution types and a strong link between higher maturity and improved outcomes in customer experience, fraud mitigation, compliance, revenue growth and efficiency.

This luncheon session will explore:

· What distinguishes Legacy Operators, Progressive Movers and Trailblazers.

· How instant payments (FedNow and RTP), ISO 20022 and stablecoins are reshaping competitive positioning.

· Where integration, legacy infrastructure and cybersecurity risks are creating friction.

· How leading institutions are structuring governance, vendor strategy and execution for measurable impact.

· Practical steps to accelerate progress along the digital payments maturity curve.

Fraudsters are advancing faster than traditional defenses can adapt—leveraging AI, exploiting real-time rails, and capitalizing on consumer expectations for instant, frictionless payments. Meanwhile, real-time payments (RTP) present the lowest recoverability of any fraud channel, intensifying the stakes for providers, banks, and merchants. Consumers now expect not only seamless user experiences but also full protection and reimbursement—even in cases of authorized fraud. The pressure is mounting: Juniper Research estimates that online payments fraud will cost companies more than $362 billion between 2023 and 2028.

This panel explores how organizations can modernize their fraud management frameworks and take a proactive approach by orchestrating identity verification, risk scoring, and behavioral insights across every stage of the customer journey. Leaders will examine how to integrate reputational data to identify and reduce first-party fraud; how to design AI-based fraud models tailored to specific products, channels, and typologies; and how to expand KYC and due-diligence disciplines across the broader payments ecosystem. Panelists will discuss how to balance fraud losses, customer experience, and revenue/risk appetite to create a cohesive, resilient, multi-layered defense strategy for the real-time era.

Hear directly from industry leaders as they take the stage with a client partner to share the real story behind a successful collaboration. These sessions move beyond theory, offering a candid look at the challenges faced, the strategies deployed, and the measurable results achieved.

Together, the partners will walk through how their organizations worked side-by-side to solve complex problems, implement new ideas, and drive meaningful outcomes. Expect practical insights, lessons learned, and proven approaches you can apply within your own organization.

Get a rapid-fire look at some of the most innovative solutions shaping the industry today. During these high-energy lightning sessions, selected companies take the stage for live product demonstrations, showing exactly how their technology works in real-world environments.

Each presentation is limited to eight minutes, forcing presenters to cut through the noise and focus on what matters most, the problem they solve, how the solution works, and the impact it can have for organizations like yours.

Whether you’re scouting new partners, exploring new capabilities, or simply looking to stay ahead of the curve, the Lightning Rounds deliver concentrated insight in a highly engaging format.

Merchant payments are being reshaped by open-banking rails, embedded finance, and real-time settlement. As merchants demand faster, cheaper, and more integrated payments experiences, banks must rethink their role, from traditional acquirers to data-driven, platform-based partners. This panel unpacks the new economics of merchant payments: the rise of Pay-by-Bank, buy now, pay later (BNPL) regulation, AI-driven fraud management, and the expanding role of embedded finance. Hear from leading banks, fintech innovators, and merchants on how business models, infrastructure, and customer expectations are changing—and what strategies are required for banks to stay relevant in 2026 and beyond. The panel will discuss key factors transformation, including:

• Real-time settlement and tokenization: Modernizing rails and operations.

• Pay-by-Bank and A2A payments: How open banking is changing merchant economics.

• Embedded and platform finance: Banks’ opportunity to power commerce ecosystems.

• AI and fraud management: Leveraging data and automation to preserve trust.

• BNPL and consumer credit regulation: The evolving compliance landscape.

The Phone Is the Platform: How Mobile Is Redefining Payments

What began as a convenient alternative to physical cards has become something far more ambitious. Mobile devices–and digital wallets–have quietly become the most powerful point of sale in history. Phones are transforming acceptance, enabling new merchant experiences, and reshaping expectations for security, flexibility, and speed across the payments landscape.

Payments are entering a new phase of transformation. As real-time networks, digital banking platforms, and programmable money reshape how value moves, artificial intelligence is beginning to move beyond automation into systems that can coordinate and act within financial operations.

This convergence is giving rise to what he describes as the Agentic Bank, where humans and intelligent AI agents work together to orchestrate payments, manage liquidity, detect risk, and deliver financial services at machine speed. In the keynote, Temsamani will explore how the intersection of payments infrastructure, AI, and digital assets is reshaping the operating model of financial institutions and redefining how value moves across the economy.

BNPL and embedded finance aren’t just new lending channels. They’re changing who owns the customer, who controls underwriting, and who captures the economics. As nonbanks and platforms insert themselves between banks and consumers, financial institutions face a high-stakes tradeoff: pursue scale through partnerships and risk becoming invisible, or maintain control and risk losing distribution. In this session, American Banker shares new research from U.S. banks and credit unions on how leaders are approaching BNPL and embedded finance right now, and what strategies are gaining momentum, where institutions are drawing hard lines, and which partnership models are proving viable. The research explores the regulatory and compliance friction points, the operational realities behind launching BNPL at bank-grade risk standards, and the competitive pressures forcing faster decisions. The discussion delivers a benchmark view of how banks and credit unions are navigating the tension between growth, control, and risk—and what that means for their role in the next generation of lending.

Get a rapid-fire look at some of the most innovative solutions shaping the industry today. During these high-energy lightning sessions, selected companies take the stage for live product demonstrations, showing exactly how their technology works in real-world environments.

Each presentation is limited to eight minutes, forcing presenters to cut through the noise and focus on what matters most, the problem they solve, how the solution works, and the impact it can have for organizations like yours.

Whether you’re scouting new partners, exploring new capabilities, or simply looking to stay ahead of the curve, the Lightning Rounds deliver concentrated insight in a highly engaging format.

This research examines how the relationship between banks and their issuers and processors is evolving as payments infrastructure modernization accelerates alongside increasing consolidation across the payments ecosystem and intensifying competition from non-bank players seeking bank charters.

Once viewed primarily as legacy technology or middleware – providers, issuers and processors are now fewer in number and more deeply embedded as strategic partners supporting banks’ growth, innovation, and customer experience initiatives. The study explores how this shift, influenced by a more concentrated provider landscape and the emergence of newly chartered, digital-first competitors, is shaping banks’ modernization priorities, including technology architecture, data access, flexibility, and speed to market. In doing so, it assesses how banks of different sizes are redefining expectations around service, collaboration, accountability, and long-term risk as they navigate choice, innovation, and dependency in an increasingly competitive payments environment.

The combination of AI and blockchain is moving payments beyond faster transactions toward smarter, more autonomous systems, driven by machine learning, smart contracts, and decentralized networks that enable predictive risk management, dynamic pricing, and programmable money.

So what happens when payments systems can learn, adapt, and self-execute? This panel brings together experts in AI, blockchain, and financial services to explore how intelligent automation and trustless infrastructure are converging to redefine payments. From autonomous fraud detection to self-settling transactions, the discussion will highlight the opportunities, risks, and strategic decisions shaping the next generation of global payments.

Hear directly from industry leaders as they take the stage with a client partner to share the real story behind a successful collaboration. These sessions move beyond theory, offering a candid look at the challenges faced, the strategies deployed, and the measurable results achieved.

Together, the partners will walk through how their organizations worked side-by-side to solve complex problems, implement new ideas, and drive meaningful outcomes. Expect practical insights, lessons learned, and proven approaches you can apply within your own organization.

Account-to-account (A2A) payments are moving from a low-cost alternative to cards into a core strategic capability for banks, reshaping how money moves, how value is captured, and how customer relationships are owned.

This panel brings together senior bank leaders to examine how A2A payments will evolve in 2026 and beyond, and what that evolution means for revenue models, infrastructure investment, risk, and competitive positioning. The discussion will explore the shift from batch to real-time rails, the impact of open banking and API-driven payments, and how banks can move from simply providing access to delivering differentiated, monetizable A2A experiences.

Panelists will debate where banks should lead, where they should partner, and where they risk being disintermediated, particularly as fintechs, merchants, and embedded finance players increasingly sit between banks and end customers. Discussion points to include A2A as a strategic asset (not a utility); real-time payments and customer expectations; monetization and business models; open banking, APIs, and control of the customer experience; risk, fraud, and trust; the future of cross-border A2A and interoperability.

Global payments are entering a new phase, shaped by real-time expectations, growing complexity, and rapid advances in technologies such as blockchain, biometrics and artificial intelligence. At the same time, mission-critical payments infrastructure needs to be modernized while maintaining the resiliency and security that clients depend on.

In this fireside chat, Umar Farooq, will share his perspective on where the payments industry is headed and what it takes to innovate at a global scale. Drawing on his experience leading one of the world’s largest payments franchises and helping shape the firm’s blockchain strategy, Umar will discuss how client needs are evolving, where innovative breakthroughs are emerging, and how new technologies are being applied in payments today.

The conversation will explore how J.P. Morgan Payments is using blockchain infrastructure, biometric authentication and AI-driven capabilities to enhance speed, security and transparency across payments. Attendees will walk away with a high-level view of the payments landscape and a practical understanding of how large institutions can responsibly scale innovation without compromising trust or stability.