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Paymentus (US: PAY) CEO Dushyant Sharma on how his firm is modernizing enterprise bill payments with a single code

    Discover how Paymentus uses AI to navigate industry-specific bill payment demands and compliance

    For large enterprises, transitioning to cloud-based bill payment systems is no longer just an upgrade — it’s becoming a necessity. Legacy payment infrastructures are often patched together with outdated systems. These systems face challenges with:

    • Meeting the growing demand for real-time payments.

    • Adopting AI-driven automation.

    • Ensuring consistent interoperability across fragmented financial networks.

    Paymentus, a publicly traded company with the stock ticker PAY, is tackling these challenges head-on. It provides cloud-native bill payment solutions tailored to enterprises across various industries. 

    Paymentus caters to large enterprises across industries such as utilities, government, finance, healthcare, insurance, and retail. With a focus on high-volume bill payments, the platform is designed to support organizations that handle large transaction volumes and require scalable, automated solutions. The firm also extends its services to mid-sized businesses seeking to upgrade their payment infrastructures.

    Helping enterprises transition to and scale cloud-based bill payment systems while handling high-volume and sensitive transactions presents its own set of challenges.

    I spoke with Paymentus CEO Dushyant Sharma about how his company uses AI to meet industry-specific demands and regulatory standards, the hurdles businesses face when adopting cloud-based solutions, and Paymentus’ plans for ongoing tech refinement.

    Dushyant Sharma, CEO of Paymentus

    Q: What bill payment challenges does Paymentus solve for large enterprises that traditional systems can’t?

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    Banks tackle the growing issue of investment banking burnout — But is it actually working?

      More doing, less debating

      In the high-stakes world of finance, where metrics move and profits respond, it’s easy to forget that behind every ledger lies a legion of employees. 

      The financial sector isn’t exactly renowned for its leisurely pace. Historically, junior investment banking jobs have been synonymous with grueling hours, often eclipsing the 100-hour mark in a week, worn like badges of honor. This relentless grind, while lucrative, is a double-edged sword, leading to employee burnout, attrition, and the occasional existential crisis. 

      In May of last year, advocates loudly criticized the fact that a frazzled employee is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. The uproar stemmed from the tragic death of Bank of America associate Leo Lukenas, highlighting the need for urgent change. In response, legacy institutions began adopting measures like limiting weekly hours and assigning senior bankers to oversee the well-being of junior staff.

      While we frequently criticize rigid policies, it’s equally important to acknowledge baby steps some legacy banks are taking to improve employee well-being. Whether these measures are sufficient is another question.

      We dive into the steps banks have taken to improve work-life balance for employees following the infamous Bofa employee incident, assess whether these initiatives are effective, and where more can be done, all served with a bit of wit and a dash of insight.

      ​Bank of America implements measures to address junior banker burnout

      Bank of America had some measures in place to address employee mental health and prevent overwork when the Lukenas incident happened.

      Post-incident, the bank has implemented additional measures:

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      How Citi is enabling banks to drive growth and remain competitive in a 24/7 world

      Fintechs have pushed the industry to focus on client experiences, and our show today digs into how traditional banks can collaborate with global banks like Citi to improve experiences like cross border payments for their clients.

      In our conversation today, Aashish Mishra, Citi’s Global Head for Banks sales and North Asia head for Financial Institutions and Fintech Sales, Treasury & Trade Solutions (TTS), dives into how the bank’s 24/7 US dollar clearing business, as well as solutions like Worldlink ® Payment Services, are helping the firm’s bank clients deliver modern and intuitive experiences to its customers.

      Aashish Mishra is part of Citi’s Services’ business based in Hong Kong, and he performs two roles: he’s responsible for TTS sales and strategy for all FI client segments in North America, which spans banks, fintechs, insurance, asset managers, and broker dealers. And for the bank segment globally, his focus is on delivering the entire TTS solution set to his clients, including cash clearing, global payments and receivables, Banking as a Service, liquidity solutions and trade solutions. Prior to this role, he spent extensive time in Citi’s Security Services business, including as the Head of Custody Product and Head of Direct Custody and Clearing business for Asia.

       Aashish has extensive experience in the financial institution space, and has worked closely with senior clients, regulators, and financial market infrastructure during his career. Today, he brings that insight from multiple arms of the vast Citi footprint to the show to explore how banks can push their products further without burdening their teams with technical lift, as well as where he expects client expectations to go in the future.

      Listen to the full episode

      Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | SoundCloud | Spotify

      The big ideas

      The Shift Towards 24/7 Real-Time Banking: The banking industry is rapidly moving towards a 24/7 real-time model, driven by several factors including Changing Customer Demands, Fintech Competition, Growth of eCommerce and Disruptive Technologies.

      These factors are pushing the industry towards 24/7 payments, 24/7 liquidity management, and 24/7 customer service. Citi is at the forefront of this transformation, offering solutions that enable banks to meet these evolving demands and create differentiation via 24/7 USD Clearing, Support for Alternate Payment Methods, 24/7 Liquidity Solutions and Enhanced Customer Experience tools.

      How Citi’s 24/7 US dollar clearing services are helping banks catch up with fintechs: “Once banks are live on this feature, they’re obviously looking to give the benefit to the end customers [to help them] send and receive US dollars, by enabling payments and commerce in real time. This is something that the end clients can often get from fintechs. This is one of the reasons why customers move to fintechs and leave traditional bank platforms. And therefore, by being enabled on this capability, our bank clients are able to win back market share, grow market share, and this also becomes a very strong differentiation for them as they compete in the home market.”

      How Citi is leveraging blockchain technology without increasing the technical lift for its bank clients: “If you look at Citi® Token Services: while there is a blockchain platform which is internal to Citi – from a customer perspective, they’re completely transparent. They just send us a regular funds transparent instruction and we do everything else, which is the complexity behind the scene, keeping the client completely transparent.”

      How Citi’s payment services are bringing fintech-like experiences to incumbents’ clients: “(a) by using our Worldlink solution and using APIs, we have the ability to completely end-to-end power the mobile banking app or the internet banking platforms of our customers and of our bank clients, for the purpose of cross border payments. (b) The future industry growth will be driven by, what we call, alternate payment methods. So think wallets, credit cards, and debit cards. One of the areas where we’ve spent a lot of investment and focus over the last few years is, how do we make sure that our Worldlink platform is able to cater to some of these new alternate payment methods as they develop. (c) Payment tracking services – The moment a payment is sent out, we have the ability to keep automatically updating the beneficiary of the payment on where the payment is and the status of the payment. It’s great from a client experience point of view because, instead of the beneficiary of the revenue having to call up the bank and figure out where the payment is and keep making phone calls, they can now get an SMS and email, which is almost like a courier tracking service, and they can see real time where the payment is.”

      Asia as the hotbed of financial innovation and adoption: “Asia is really leading … the charge on some of that new technology deployment and innovation. What all of that does is drive disruption, drive innovation, and lead to things like new forms of commerce, new forms of business models like open banking, banking as a service, embedded finance, and digital banks.”

      How digital assets are changing the way banks move and manage money: “…digital assets, taking a long term view, have very exciting prospects in terms of what they can do for cross border payments, in terms of efficiency, cost, and transparency.”

      The full transcript

      The major shifts that are influencing how banks provide services to their retail and corporate customers

      Let me just step back a bit and talk you through a little bit about our operating environment and how our customers are evolving and changing, because that’s really driving a lot of the changes in our business. One of the key things that we do is enable both the real economy and the financial economy through cross border movement of liquidity and payment. If we look at a classic client today [and that would be a client who is based, for example,] in China, which is selling their goods and services on an ecommerce site in the US. They’re buying goods in turn from suppliers who could be based in Latin America or they could be based in the Middle East, and they could have subsidiaries all over the world, whom they need to inject with working capital, as the needs may be.

      In our world, this client will need to enable all of the payments and the money involved in real time, 24/7 and 365 days, so that’s what our customers need to do. And that is the world in which we, as transaction banks, operate. We need to, therefore, service and enable our end customers. So, that’s the big shift in the business that we do these days. Now, what’s in turn driving this new operating environment? I would point back to four fundamental shifts in the last few years.

      Number one, the nature of the end consumers of banks has changed dramatically. So be it a retail client or an institutional corporate client – all our clients today want instant fulfillment. They want a digital experience. They want the ability to click a few buttons and get the transaction completed. That’s what our consumers demand and expect of traditional banks.

      Secondly, the emergence of fintech as competition. Today, when we speak to our senior bank clients, and if you ask them, who do you think is the biggest competition? Fintech comes up invariably, and what that really forces banks to do is focus much more on the product capability or the client-to-client experience they’re able to deliver.

      The third shift is commerce to ecommerce. There was a Citi research report which came out recently which estimated that nearly 23% of total retail sales globally are done via ecommerce. If you look at ecommerce, [for example] if you look at [some of the biggest retail brands], these are all 24/7 365, so commerce has moved to 24/7 365, and therefore payments, liquidity, and the banking system need to [too].

      The fourth shift has been the growth of disruptive new technology ranging from APIs, cloud,  Gen AI, digital assets, etc. So if you put all of those four things together, these are all driving a significant disruption and a significant shift in how our business is carried out, and pushing it all towards an environment which is 24/7, real time, and instant payment based.

      How banks are using Citi’s 24/7 USD clearing to meet the demands of their customers

      What 24/7 clearing does is it allows our bank clients to send and receive US dollars, 24/7, 365, so it does away with any concept of cut offs, down times, and US holidays. This was something we launched about two years ago, and today, we have about 200 clients live and taking advantage of this feature with us, and that network is growing as we speak.

      There are a couple of key and different use cases that we see emerging. Firstly, once banks are live on this feature, they’re obviously looking to give the benefit to the end customers, and giving their end customers across retail, institutional, Small and Medium-sized Business (SMBs) (and corporate, to transact, send and receive US dollars, and enable payments and commerce in real time. This is something that the clients can often get from fintechs. This is one of the reasons why customers move to fintechs and leave the traditional bank platform. And therefore, by being enabled on this capability, our bank clients are able to win back market share, grow market share, and this also becomes a very strong differentiation for them as they compete in the home market. So the ability to go as a marketing campaign, or to go to the end customer base, and make this claim, it’s a very powerful proposition.

      Secondly, for banks which have multiple international branches – all of the branches are enabled on this 24/7 capability. Once they do that, they can then go to their clients – retail or corporate doesn’t make a difference – but they can go to the clients and give them the ability that within this closed loop ecosystem of their branch network, their customers can send and receive US dollars in real time. A really powerful proposition from a customer perspective, in the cross border space.

      For the third use case, think of a bank with multiple branches. Often these branches have independent treasuries. They need to incur overdraft, set up credit lines, borrow from the market, even if another branch might have surplus liquidity. What 24/7 clearing can result in is a centralized Treasury concept, the full cost for maintaining different branches’ liquidity can be optimized and can be made much more efficient.

      When we rolled out this feature, we were very clear that we wanted something which our banks could adopt at scale without having to put in any amount of complex dollars on technology investments, implementation, etc. So we designed the solution in a way that our clients could almost switch on and switch off this feature at their will, without having to do any form of implementation or tech enhancements. There’s absolutely no need for them to invest in blockchain digital assets to take advantage of this. They operate using standards. So it’s really a very easy way for our clients to take advantage of this feature.

      How Citi is leading in cross border payments

      I think the future industry growth will be driven by, what we call, alternate payment methods. So think wallets, credit cards, and debit cards. A few years back, money used to move from one account to another. But today, money moves from an account, but the destination could be either a bank account or a wallet or a credit card or a debit card. That’s the way the cross border payments business is moving. This is what, in our view, will drive future growth. So if you take wallets as an example, 15 years ago, they were practically non-existent, at least as far as the cross border payments business was concerned. It was just not an important end destination.

      Wallets are the leading payment methods in ecommerce. Wallets account for nearly 49% of ecommerce and nearly 32% of point of sale commerce happens through wallets. Citi report estimates that by 2026, 60% of the world’s population will be enabled in wallets. What we have done at Citi is our cross border remittance platform called Worldlink. One of the areas where we’ve spent a lot of investment and focus over the last few years is, how do we make sure that our Worldlink platform is able to cater to some of these new alternate payment methods as they develop? For example, we are one of the first global bank’s to enable cross border payments into MasterCard debit cards.

      We were one of the first global bank’s to enable a specific type of financial institution… crossborder payment flows into [digital wallets] in 100 plus markets. We are one of the first global banks to enable cross border payments into China, which are two of the predominant usage methods in China. How do we help our bank clients and arm them with some of these capabilities? Because that’s really what the end customers are increasingly looking for.

      What we call this is the increasing convergence and intersection of 24/7, real time payments and real time liquidity. And look for anyone who knows the banking industry payments and liquidity. They’re two sides of the same fund, one can’t exist without the other.  So if banks need to enable 24/7 payments, we also need to enable the liquidity to support those payments. We have really focused on a couple of things to enable this real time, cross border liquidity.

      Firstly, [we have] what we call internally at Citi as real time liquidity sharing. Essentially what this does is that it allows the automated usage of a centralized liquidity pool. So for example, if you have a bank client with a head office branch, which is really the mothership which keeps the central liquidity pool, this real time liquidity sharing capability allows all the multiple branches on a cross border basis to use this liquidity on a 24/7 365 basis, and this is really what becomes a key tool to support things like 24/7 dollar clearing.

      Secondly, we are focusing on what we call Citi Token Services. Today we are live with this in Singapore, New York, and very recently, London. And in a nutshell, what this does is, let’s assume if a client of ours has an account with us in Citi Singapore and they want to move that liquidity to Citi in New York. They’re able to do this real time by taking advantage of the Citi token feature, which is really what helps move that liquidity from Singapore to New York. Just similar to our thought process, we want clients to be able to use all of the features with minimal tech enhancements. If you look at Citi Token Services, while there is a blockchain platform which is internal to Citi, from a customer perspective, they’re completely transparent. They just send us a regular funds transparent instruction and we do everything else, which is the complexity behind the scene, keeping the client completely transparent. So those are two of the main things that we are focusing on with banks to enable the liquidity movement as well.

      Readying banks for fintech competition

      One of the things fintechs do extremely well is just a shared customer experience. They’ve really set the bar very, very high. In many cases, banks lose market share simply because the customer experience that they offer cannot match fintechs. That’s one of the main areas for cross border payments to act where we have really upgraded our capabilities, and in turn, we are allowing our banks to take advantage of those, so that they are able to offer their end customers a much better level of customer experience.

      What I loosely call digitization of the cross border payments experience essentially means that by using our Worldlink solution and using APIs, we have the ability to completely end-to-end power the mobile banking app or the internet banking platforms of our customers and of our bank clients, for the purpose of cross border payments. So right from payment initiation, payment completion, fulfillment, payment tracking and the foreign exchange involved, everything is digital. Everything is seamless.

      So if you are the end customer of the bank, you would get pretty much the same experience as you would expect to see from fintech providers. That’s been a key part of a strategy and a key part of our success with our bank clients in this space.

      From a customer experience point of view, especially for cross border payments or for retail payments, for example, or SMB payments, for example, payment methods are an important destination that the end customers want. If the banks are not able to support that, the end customer will just move to a fintech platform. Through our investments in supporting these alternate payment methods, we are now able to help our bank clients plug that gap and be able to offer  a streamlined process to their end customers.

      Also what we call our Payment Tracking services or Global Beneficiary services: essentially, the moment a payment is sent out, we have the ability to keep updating automatically the beneficiary of the payment on where the payment is, the status of the payment. It’s great from a client experience point of view, because, instead of the beneficiary of the revenue having to call up the bank and figure out where the payment is, and keep making phone calls, they can now get an SMS and email, which is almost like a courier tracking service, and they can see real time where the payment is like.

      How Citi’s Services’ business come together to build better client experiences

      The clients include, for example, broker dealers, global custodians, asset managers, insurance. And all of these clients, they have needs, and they buy solutions from both parts of Citi services business, i.e. the TTS business and the Security Services business, because they need the span of both of these.

      From a client perspective, it’s basically the same cash which moves from their operational side, which is where the TTS business gets involved and moves to the investment side, which is where the Security Services business gets involved. Eventually it’s really the same cash moving through the whole system. So clearly there is a value proposition for a certain set of clients in bringing a joint solution to them, which combines both TTS and the Security Services.

      [For clients, the advantages of packaging this together are] number one, there are clear economic efficiencies from consolidating providers, versus having too many fragmented providers for different requirements, and having one consistent provider. So there are economies of scale there. There is a much more consistent and a much more end to end solution set in having both pieces put together much more cohesively. There are operational efficiencies in terms of our liquidity that can be seen, consolidated, and deployed. There are far more operational and therefore liquidity-related alpha that our clients can generate. And then finally, it does result in a much more superior client experience because of single touch points, end to end view, consolidated infrastructure.

      Those are some of the benefits that our clients get. And if you put that on top growing emerging needs around client needs, around common APIs, common data feeds, common onboarding and KYC processes, all of those benefits add up for our clients.

      Clearly, this is an important area for us. We absolutely see the needs of our clients converging. From a client perspective, how much value they get also depends on the customer itself. How are they structured? What is the complexity of their operations and the geographical footprint? So the value for the client varies depending on how they are structured.

      In terms of how we bring both businesses together and give our clients the right value and the right efficiency – if you look at Citi, given our global network, and the strength we have in each of those individual businesses, we are fairly unique in the industry in terms of our ability to cobble solutions together, which spans both, and deliver both to clients on a truly globally consistent basis.

      How Asia is pushing the envelope in adoption and innovation

      North Asia, particularly, is an extremely exciting region for banks to operate in. There are two  opportunities as well as challenges. There is a real chance for smart players to step up and really drive growth and market share. One of these things that are unique to North Asia is just the pace of infrastructure changes. If I look at the regulator, the financial market infrastructure, they are driving absolutely world class payment technology, payment systems, fostering innovation, laying down the right policies to allow new, innovative practices to evolve. So that, to me, is fairly unique to this region.

      Number two, the consumer demographics, the size, scale, the wealth growth that we’re seeing in this region – all of that is driving very different consumer demographics, which again, lays out significant opportunities for this industry. Then the availability and the adoption of new age technology – it could be something as simple as just the mobile pervasiveness and the ability and the ubiquity of mobile devices to something much more evolved, like Gen AI.

      Asia is really leading, and within that, North Asia is very active in leading the charge on some of that new technology deployment, and innovation. What all of that does is drive disruption, drive innovation, and lead to things like new forms of commerce, new forms of business models like open banking, Banking as a Service, embedded finance, and digital banks. Malaysia is probably one of the most active regions for digital banks. To me, over the next few years, I think all of us in the financial services industry will really have to up our game to make sure we’re able to navigate and take advantage of some of these ongoing disruptive changes.

      The next major innovation in cross border payments

      [In terms of future innovation,]I will really point at two things, and these are both based on what we are doing at Citi and equally, what we hear from clients – purely senior client feedback. Number one, digital assets, taking a long term view, have very exciting prospects in terms of what they can do for cross border payments, in terms of efficiency, cost, transparency. I think there is significant potential, from a Citi perspective, in digital assets. For cross border payments, we are really focusing on two things, one is Citi Token Services, and how we continue furthering the use cases of Citi Token Services. That’s a big thrust for us.

      The second one is the regulated liability network, the RLN. In simple terms, it’s an open architecture industry effort to make tokens across the industry competitive. It has very powerful potential deployment in terms of both within a US dollar currency, for example, the dollar clearing business, and even more so as bank regulators across the world start looking at this and start seeing how different currencies link up as well.

      As far as cross border payments go, the second major innovation that a client will see is Gen AI.

      Our clients are at different stages of deploying and adopting it. We did a recent survey on the adoption of AI with our different client sets and independent FI segments, a lot of the banks still seem to be behind, say, NBFI, traditional insurance asset managers, in terms of how they’re looking at this space.

      They’re starting off – rightfully so – they’re taking a very measured approach in some of the risk of these deployments as they go through it, and obviously some of the regulatory approval processes. From a Citi perspective, Citi has a form of strategy on how we approach this space and the use cases that we are evaluating across the bank and as we scale and deploy this across the firm, we are staying vigilant in how we manage the associated risks with it.

      Effective risk management

      Risk management is central to everything that we do, both within the bank and in terms of the work that we do with our clients. It’s just central to all of that. Risk management has multiple aspects in our business: it ranges from operational resilience, regulatory risk management, to cyber fraud mitigation. It ranges the whole spectrum. If you look at the changing nature of payments and the volume of payments and transactions increasing exponentially, these are fairly unique challenges in terms of managing risk.

      From a Citi perspective, we continue to invest significantly in infrastructure, technology, and people to  strengthen our risk management standards, and are able to safeguard not just Citi, but equally, our clients in terms of all the business that they entrust with us.

      I think one of the things that helps Citi, we have very, very talented people in each of the countries that we operate in. We have feet on the ground, who understand the local regulatory landscape, who understand the local requirements, and in turn, are able to feed that both into the Citi system and to our clients. That helps us be more effective in some of these efforts, but clearly it’s one of our most important priorities.

      Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the individual, unless reflected in Citi’s Research Reports, are those of the speaker and may not necessarily reflect the views of Citi or any of its affiliates.  All opinions are made at the time of the recording and are subject to change without notice. The expressions of opinion are not intended to be a forecast of future events or a guarantee of future results.

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      BNPL players turn up the heat: Affirm and Klarna compete for banks, growth, and market leadership

        Where does BNPL belong in the bigger financial picture?

        The buy now, pay later (BNPL) race has shifted into a new phase. BNPL providers, Affirm and Klarna, initially grew by integrating into e-commerce checkouts, and are now contending for partnerships with major banks. This is also a sign that financial institutions are warming up to the idea of installment-based lending. 

        Both firms are making big moves to solidify their positions, but their distinct approaches, business models, and competitive strategies bring them advantages, combined with challenges. With Klarna moving toward a public debut and Affirm strengthening its alliances, the two are in the game not just for consumers but also for the financial ecosystem players themselves.

        A new seeding ground: Big bank partnerships

        For years, traditional banks dismissed BNPL as an unsustainable lending model, prone to high default rates and regulatory scrutiny. That stance is shifting. With consumer adoption of BNPL surging, major banks are rethinking their position – they are not just tolerating BNPL now but actively making moves to integrate it into their ecosystems. 

        Affirm’s recent partnership with J.P. Morgan Payments last month is a clear signal that BNPL is no longer just another alternative lending model — it’s mature enough to become embedded within traditional banking. Through this deal, merchants using J.P. Morgan’s Commerce Platform can now offer Affirm’s BNPL loans at checkout, integrating short-term financing directly into the bank’s payment ecosystem. This collaboration puts Affirm in front of a massive merchant base of one of the world’s largest banking networks, solidifying its position as a key BNPL provider in North America.

        In February, J.P. Morgan also teamed up with Klarna to roll out a B2B BNPL offering, bringing installment payment options to its business customers. Through this partnership, companies using J.P. Morgan Chase’s payments commerce platform will be able to split payments over time, later this year, marking a significant step in BNPL’s expansion beyond consumer retail.

        How Affirm and Klarna compare — and where they differ

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        A quarter into 2025, where are Goldman and Apple steering their strategies next?

          Checking In: Where do Goldman Sachs and Apple stand in their individual endeavors?

          Today, I’d like to talk about two partners of a formidable alliance that set out to reshape partnerships in financial services. One brought technological prowess, the other financial muscle — but their grand collaboration didn’t unfold as expected. If you’ve connected the dots, yes, I’m talking about Apple and Goldman Sachs. 

          Today, though, Goldman is back doing what it does best, investment banking and trading, while pushing forward to deepen its AI-related experiments across the business. And Apple is recalibrating its tech and financial services strategy.

          We look at what’s been unfolding at both firms since the start of the year. But first, we check in on the current status of the Goldman-Apple partnership.

          The Goldman-Apple credit card business

          Apple’s high-profile partnership with Goldman Sachs, which began in 2019, soured quickly. 

          The collaboration at first seemed like a strategic masterstroke — Apple sought a gateway into the financial world, while Goldman was set on overhauling its business around new, modern consumer offerings. But like many business alliances, differing priorities and operational realities led to a quiet unraveling.

          The Apple Card, a sleek, consumer-friendly alternative to traditional credit cards, turned into a liability. While uptake of the card was quick, the business model never made sense for GS, which was saddled with all the responsibility for a weird lending portfolio that was rapidly deteriorating. And unlike the old adage, Goldman couldn’t make up for it on volume. Come 2024, Goldman, bleeding money from its consumer banking foray, was eager to offload the Apple Card portfolio. Regulatory scrutiny added further woes, as Apple and Goldman were fined millions for mishandling credit disputes. What once looked like a one-of-a-kind move forward in consumer finance started to resemble a costly miscalculation.

          Several financial firms are now competing to take over Goldman’s role in Apple’s credit card partnership. Reports surfaced that Apple was in talks with J.P. Morgan Chase and now Barclays and Synchrony to take over the program. While lenders see potential in working with Apple, many are wary of the original deal’s risks and profitability challenges.

          Although Goldman’s credit card agreement with Apple runs until 2030, CEO David Solomon indicated in this year’s January earnings call that the partnership could end sooner.

          Inside Goldman Sachs, a quarter into 2025

          Checking in on Goldman’s trajectory since the beginning of 2025:

          1. Goldman’s new Capital Solutions Group to grow its private credit business

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          With the CFPB muzzled, what’s stopping FIs and fintechs from playing dirty?

            The calm before the storm: the financial industry with and without the CFPB

            The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), established in 2010 under the Dodd-Frank Act, has tried to be a sentinel for American consumers, shielding them from predatory financial practices. But ever since Trump set foot back into the Oval Office, the CFPB has barely had a moment to catch its breath.

            That’s exactly what we’re diving into today — how the CFPB’s shake-up is raising big questions about its future and rewriting the rules for banks, fintechs, and the industry at large.

            A timeline of the crackdown

            The CFPB’s inception was a direct response to the 2008 financial crisis, aiming to prevent a recurrence by enforcing stringent regulations on financial entities. Over the years, it secured $20 billion+ in financial relief for consumers, targeting unfair practices by banks, mortgage providers, and credit card companies. 

            What began as a strong year for the bureau quickly took a turn as the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda started reshaping its path. On February 1, 2025, President Trump dismissed CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. ​Following his dismissal, President Trump appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the acting director on February 3, 2025. Subsequently, Russell Vought, former budget chief under President Trump, assumed the role of acting director at the CFPB on February 7 after his confirmation as head of the Office of Management and Budget. 

            From there, the new administration took decisive steps to curtail the CFPB’s operations.

            Russell Vought — the newly appointed acting director and a key architect of Project 2025, a blueprint advocating for the agency’s dissolution — issued directives to halt ongoing investigations and suspend the implementation of finalized rules. This move effectively paused the agency’s enforcement actions, leaving numerous cases in limbo.

            The CFPB withdrew several high-profile lawsuits, including those against major financial institutions like J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. These cases, which addressed issues such as the handling of the payments platform Zelle, were dismissed without digging deeper, preventing future refiling.

            The administration’s actions align with a broader agenda to reduce government oversight and promote industry self-regulation. 

            Pop the champagne or call the lawyers? The industry’s split reaction

            Graphic credit: Tearsheet

            The financial industry’s relationship with the CFPB has been contentious. Some firms viewed the bureau as overreaching, often chafing under its str

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            Are banks and fintechs stablecoin skeptics or undercover believers?

              Stablecoins: The Trojan horse sneaking into traditional finance?

              Bitcoin’s been flexing, the government’s nodding, and stablecoins are making new friends.

              Pegged to the US dollar or other assets, stablecoins have evolved from a niche crypto experiment into a $221 billion plus market capitalization (of the top 10 stablecoins) and financial firms are definitely paying attention.

              Fintechs and financial institutions are moving to position themselves in this growing market. The question is: How can stablecoins impact the future of money, and what challenges lie ahead?

              Financial firms’ growing bet on stablecoins

              Stablecoins now represent a fundamental shift in how money moves. Their real-world use cases range from international remittances to corporate treasury management, enabling faster and cheaper transactions than traditional banking systems. Stripe has recently called them the “room-temperature superconductors for financial services,” a fancy way of saying they make payments shockingly efficient without melting down the system.

              The rise: Stablecoin use cases have been fueled by inefficiencies in the traditional banking sector and sticky inflation. Cross-border payments, for instance, remain slow and expensive due to intermediaries and outdated infrastructure. Stablecoins are also increasingly being used as a hedge against currency instability in emerging markets.

              The gray area: Despite their potential, stablecoins exist in a regulatory gray area — a place where innovation can either thrive or be buried under paperwork.

              Stablecoin regulation remains a patchwork of evolving policies. US lawmakers are now focusing on creating clearer, more comprehensive legislation. Proposals like the GENIUS Act and the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act are looking to define a legal structure for issuing and using stablecoins.

              Meanwhile, financial institutions that have already introduced their own stablecoins — or fintechs facilitating stablecoin transactions — operate within specific legal frameworks:

              • JPM Coin, launched in 2019, operates within J.P. Morgan’s private, permissioned blockchain network. It is used only for institutional clients, keeping it within regulatory boundaries.

              • PayPal’s PYUSD, launched in 2023, was issued through Paxos, a regulated entity with approvals from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). This allowed PayPal to offer PYUSD while complying with state-level regulations. By year-end, PayPal plans to make PYUSD available as a payment option for its 20 million+ SMB merchants, enabling them to pay vendors through its upcoming bill-pay service.

              • Stripe doesn’t issue its own stablecoin but facilitates payments and integrations using existing ones, such as USDC, avoiding direct issuance risks. Meanwhile, Revolut reportedly entered stablecoin development last year, while Visa rolled out a platform to help FIs issue stablecoins.

              More FIs are making moves: Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan shared this month that his bank is prepared to enter the stablecoin business — once US lawmakers permit regulatory approval. 

              This cautious approach reflects broader concerns within traditional finance about compliance, risk management, and integration into existing financial systems. Banks face strict capital requirements and regulatory scrutiny, making their entry into the stablecoin market more complex. So, banks want in, but only when they won’t get a legal migraine for it.

              If banks receive a green light, stablecoins could compete with money market funds, transforming payments and liquidity management. But if regulations become too tight, the momentum could shift to friendlier jurisdictions, leaving US banks looking on like someone who showed up after the game started.

              How FIs and fintechs differ in their approach to stablecoins

              Graphic credit: Tearsheet

              Fintechs — and now banks — are moving more deeply into stablecoins, but their playbooks differ based on their respective strengths and constraints.

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              How banks can stay relevant, not relics: Lessons from BNY & Citi

                Old Guard, New Rules: Who’s keeping up?

                Big banks are playing offense. Fintech competition, tech leaps, and workforce expectations are evolving — so should banks.

                Traditional banks are already trying on a modern fit — experimenting with tech, balancing brick-and-click, rethinking talent, and making new power couple moves in partnerships.

                Two prime examples stood out last week: BNY takes the artificial intelligence route to improve its operations, and Citi continues to use workplace flexibility to navigate talent challenges. While these paths differ, they reflect a shared realization — adapt or risk becoming a museum exhibit.

                Graphic credits: Tearsheet

                BNY: Merging centuries of banking with AI innovation

                Established in 1784, BNY is America’s oldest bank, which has thrived for over two centuries. Yet, instead of clinging to its storied past, the institution is looking forward, betting big on AI as the key to its future.

                In a landmark deal, BNY has entered into a multiyear relationship with OpenAI, a decision that signals more than just technological adoption — it’s an illustration that even the most traditional players should innovate or risk being upstaged by a 25-year-old coder in a hoodie.

                The cornerstone of this AI-driven transformation is Eliza, BNY’s proprietary AI platform, launched in 2024. Initially conceived as an internal chatbot trained on the bank’s vast institutional knowledge, Eliza has evolved into a multifaceted AI tool that empowers employees to build AI-powered applications. More than 50% of the bank’s 52,000 employees actively engage with Eliza, using it for tasks ranging from lead generation to workflow optimization. By integrating OpenAI’s most advanced models launched this year, BNY is supercharging Eliza with next-gen capabilities. These include Deep Research, which can analyze vast amounts of online information to complete multistep research tasks, and Operator, an AI agent capable of browsing the web like a human.

                But why is BNY Mellon making this move now? Necessity. Competition. Strategic vision.

                • Necessity: AI adoption in banking is no longer optional. From compliance to risk management, the financial sector deals with high complexity. AI offers solutions to streamline operations, reduce inefficiencies, and facilitate decision-making. 

                • Competition: Fintech startups and tech giants like Google and Apple are poised to take over market share if they fall too far behind. To hold its ground, BNY likely needs a tech upgrade to offer more AI-driven services.

                • Strategic positioning: With banks emerging as some of the most active adopters of AI, BNY doesn’t want to be a bystander. Partnering with OpenAI gives it access to the latest underlying tech, positioning it as a strong player in the industry.

                However, this transformation is not without its challenges. Integrating advanced AI framework into a 240-year-old institution is like teaching your grandparents to use TikTok. Ensuring compliance with strict regulatory standards, managing the ethical implications of AI-driven decision-making, and upskilling employees to work effectively alongside AI are all significant hurdles. Moreover, cybersecurity remains a major concern — handling sensitive financial data requires strong protective measures to prevent breaches.

                Despite these challenges, BNY is forging ahead, not just out of necessity but out of the foresightedness that AI may likely be a big part of the future of banking. This puts other well-equipped banks on the spot — if the oldest bank in America can adapt, what excuse do the rest have?

                Citigroup’s Hybrid Bet: Why sticking to flexibility might just be its smartest move yet

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                Klarna and Chime eye IPOs in 2025 — But will the market play nice?

                  Can fintech’s brightest stars shine on Wall Street?

                  Klarna and Chime are finally ready to test the public markets, likely this year. The Swedish buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm and the US neobank have reportedly confidentially filed in late 2024 for IPOs, marking two of the most anticipated fintech public debuts in recent years.

                  But with shifting market conditions, a new administration in the White House, and a mix of investor excitement and skepticism, these IPOs could either be fintech’s grand return to Wall Street — or another cautionary tale.

                  The possibility of an IPO for Revolut and Stripe has also been brewing since 2023, but neither company is ready to seal the deal just yet.

                  The case for going public

                  For Klarna and Chime, the timing makes sense — at least on paper. Markets have started 2025 with a bullish streak, fueled by cooling inflation, a rebounding IPO pipeline, and a government that appears friendlier to fintech innovation. However, alongside that enthusiasm come fiercer competition and sharper investor scrutiny.

                  After a turbulent couple of years, Klarna has been eyeing a public listing. Its valuation plummeted from a $46 billion peak in 2021 to around $6.7 billion in 2022 before rebounding to an estimated $15 billion. Going public could help Klarna raise fresh capital, expand further into the US, and compete more strongly with rivals like Affirm and Apple’s Pay Later service.

                  As for Chime, with over 20 million customers, it is one of the biggest digital banking players in the US. However, it hasn’t raised funds since 2021, when it was valued at around $25 billion. A public listing could provide it with capital to fuel growth and potentially diversify beyond its core product offerings, which include a fee-free digital banking experience. 

                  The aspirations and tactical execution

                  The post-pandemic era has turned IPOs into a proving ground rather than a victory lap. Companies can no longer bank on hype alone — they need solid profitability, sustainable growth, and a narrative that withstands intense scrutiny. The Federal Reserve’s tighter monetary policies, global market volatility, and the shift from a liquidity-driven to a fundamentals-driven investment climate are creating higher entry barriers.

                  Both Klarna and Chime will be entering a relatively less forgiving market and heightened investor concern than in 2021, a year that saw 61 fintech IPOs — far more than the 16 that have launched in the past three years combined.

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                  “We want this to be a long term relationship, minimum 5-10 years”: Citi’s Chafic Haddad on how the bank chooses fintech clients and builds evolving partnerships

                  Choosing the right bank to work with is a skill that fintechs need to develop and nurture. When the right choices are made, fintechs can find themselves working with banks that not only provide a strong compliance and banking layer but also have opportunities for the fintech to plug into the bank’s infrastructure and become more than just a client. 

                  This evolving landscape is what Citi’s Global Head of Fintech Sales, Chafic Haddad, provided insight on when I spoke to him. He dove into the maturity cycle that fintechs go through by starting from offering basic products like accounts and then eventually growing enough to explore capital markets and investment banking. He also described how Citi helps these fintechs spread their wings beyond their local markets.

                  Listen to today’s conversation to learn from Haddad’s experience about how the bank helps fintechs grow sustainably and eventually spread their wings beyond their local geographies and the way Citi organizes and manages these relationships.

                  Big ideas

                  Chafic’s role: My team’s job is to provide or connect fintechs with what we do within the transaction bank. We’re the business that manages the overall relationship across all Citi products. We have a two fold structure: you’ve got the commercial bank, which would typically look after small to medium sized fintechs, and then the more mature unicorn type fintech would sit within our banking organization.

                  How Citi chooses which fintechs to work with: We consider a range of factors including growth potential. We have finite resources. We can’t take on everybody and it’s a space that continues to grow and evolve. Growth is key, because we want to be working with entities that have ambitions. Given our network, we’d like to be partnering with fintechs that want to grow beyond their home market.

                  How Citi’s fintech relationships begin: We want this to be a long term relationship, at a minimum of 5-10 years or even longer. Initially, the entry point is the business that I represent, which is the transaction banking business, or the Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) because that is the go to area for any fintech on day one. They want accounts, access to payment schemes, and treasury management.

                  How Citi collaborates with fintech clients: They [fintech CEOs] have a vested interest in being part of the strategic discussion to work with Citi. This is ultimately their business and their name on the door. Those conversations take place at multiple levels, often starting at the top of the house, and then once we focus or zoom in.

                  Evolving relationships:                   Many start off as clients and we collaborate and co-create. But in several cases, they actually come into our ecosystem as providers of service and become clients over time.

                  Listen to the podcast

                  Subscribe: Apple Podcasts I SoundCloud I Spotify

                  The full transcript

                  Building on legacy

                  Whether you play in the merchant acquiring space as a fintech, or you offer domestic cross border solutions or drive FX (foreign exchange) platforms, you need a provider that can give you access to payment channels and schemes, support you with operating accounts, help you manage liquidity, and help you manage and safeguard client monies. And to do all of that while guiding you through the regulatory environment. 

                  So I would say those are the two or three things that stand out for me in terms of what a fintech really needs from a provider or a banking institution. As a 200 year plus financial institution with international branches in over 90 countries, we believe that we are well-placed to support fintechs, whether they are domestically focused or looking to offer their solutions globally. We’re leveraging our long history as a provider of financial services as well as our global presence to roll out solutions to prioritize a digital, 24/7 approach to payments; advancing the client experience and ensuring liquidity for our clients around the clock.

                  Our network is unique. We have the largest network today compared to other large multinational banks, and that is something that really appeals to our clients, because it underlines our commitment to the international arena. 

                  When you deal with Citi, you’re effectively dealing with the institution that’s plugging you into one platform. The model is similar wherever you do business in New York, London, Tokyo or Sydney. The products and solutions are more or less the same.

                  I say ‘more or less’ because there are some differences that are driven by local regulation, but effectively, we can be your one stop shop. As far as a global strategy is concerned, we talked about how Citi supports fintechs around the world, but there is also collaboration or co-creation that Citi has entered into with a number of fintechs to come up with solutions that are now offered as mainstream. 

                  One example of that is our Pay-to-China offering. If you think about Chinese merchants that are selling online overseas, one of their challenges is collecting funds. So the Pay-to-China offering at Citi enables offshore payment intermediaries to pay directly into their merchant’s local currency bank accounts in China for goods that have been sold online or overseas through e-commerce platforms. It’s a solution that leverages our FX capabilities and access to domestic payment schemes in China to provide a seamless cross border payment experience. 

                  Another example is our Spring by Citi® offering, which is our acquiring engine and digital payment acceptance solution. It’s also an example of how we’re collaborating and co-creating with ecosystem fintech partners to roll out this offering in multiple markets.

                  One more example is Citi® Payments Express, which is our 24/7 cloud-enabled digital commerce solution. It’s a solution that facilitates multi-domestic and real time liquidity and gives us the opportunity to scale to 100 times the volume while operating at much lower costs. We’re looking to roll out Express in the top global markets in the next few years.

                  Fintech priorities: Growing beyond local borders

                  Fintech entities that we’ve been in business with for a number of years are now looking to grow, – if they haven’t already done so – beyond their home market. That is typically driven by both a need to support existing customers who are doing business in multiple markets, as well as opportunities to acquire new ones. 

                  The other interesting dynamic is that many set out to offer a single product. We will be your FX partner and we will help you acquire if you’re selling in marketplaces. Now we’re seeing those same entities develop and sell more than one solution. In order for them to expand their product offering, some have even gone as far as acquiring banking licenses, and that has allowed them to get into the deposit-taking space and lending space, as well as do other regulatory-focused products.

                  On working with Citi 

                  So one thing that we’re very keen on is we don’t simply want to be a provider of service. That is something that typically kickstarts the relationship. But over time, we want to co-create with the fintech clients that we do business with. That means we sit together, understand what their strategic objectives are, how they envision their strategy to be over the next three to five years, and then work with them in building the products and solutions to get them there. 

                  We typically connect at various levels of the organization. Unlike some other sectors, you’ll find that in the fintech space, a lot of the CEOs are owners and operators. They have a vested interest in being part of the strategic discussion. This is ultimately their business and their name on the door. Those conversations take place at multiple levels, often starting at the top of the house, and then once we focus or zoom in on an idea or an innovative solution, that gets focused with the people at various levels.

                  What’s interesting about our relationships with fintechs is they’re quite dynamic. Many start off as clients and we collaborate and co-create. But in several cases, they actually come into our ecosystem as providers of service and become clients over time. It’s a dynamic space. There are opportunities for us to plug into one another’s capabilities. 

                  One example of that is we have a cross currency crossborder platform called Worldlink. Even though we are present in over 90 countries, there are some markets where we are not physically on the ground for one reason or another. So in those instances, we need to find a partner that we can connect with and collaborate with to help us deliver our service on the ground – and those are the kinds of collaborations that take place with some of the fintech clients.

                  We’re quite deliberate about the fintechs we choose to take on as clients. We consider a range of factors including growth potential. We have finite resources, as you can appreciate. We can’t take on everybody and it’s a space that continues to grow and evolve. Growth is key, because we want to be working with entities that have ambitions. Given our network, we’d like to be partnering with fintechs that want to grow beyond their home market, as I mentioned earlier, and actually have longer term objectives. For us, these relationships are difficult to establish. The onboarding process is rigorous. It requires quite a lot of heavy lifting. 

                  So once we get over that, we want this to be a long term relationship, at a minimum 5-10 years or even longer. Initially, the entry point is the business that I represent, which is the transaction banking business, or the Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) because that is the go to area for any fintech on day one: we want accounts, we want access to payment schemes, and we want treasury management. 

                  We want help collecting once we plug them into these solutions and we then evolve the conversation into other areas, whether it’s around capital markets or broader investment banking or working capital.

                  Citi’s evolution to work with fintechs

                  The capabilities within our network continue to evolve, as we roll out new solutions, and we’re doing that all the time. The ultimate aim is to be able to do that across the network to give you that seamless experience wherever you’re doing business with Citi. That is something that continues to be at the heart of everything that we do. Given the geographic reach that we have, we have expertise at the ground level to guide our fintech clients through the regulatory challenges, local laws, regulations, what to expect and how to go about licensing. That puts us in a unique position. We also have an experienced and dedicated fintech sales team – my role, and that of my teams, is focused exclusively on the fintech segment. 

                  We don’t talk to anybody else from a client segmentation perspective, unless they fall into our fintech definition. Hence, you’ve got that expertise on the team, that network that allows you to operate globally, and you’ve got the local expertise on the ground. I’d also add that over time, we’ve become a trusted advisor to our clients, so our deep rooted industry expertise enables us to guide our fintech clients as they seek new opportunities, new customer segments and look to grow.

                  Navigating timezones as a professional

                  Geography does not matter much when you’re in a global role, because I’m constantly on the road. From a timezone perspective, it works for me, because it gives me a good half day with Asia in the morning, and then as the day goes on, Europe and the UK come online. And then my afternoons and evenings are with the U.S.. So it works from that perspective. 

                  The way we’re organized is that I have regionals, and they’re located in New York, Miami – which is our Latin Hub – Hong Kong, and Dublin, which is our service European hub. They have individuals that report to their own teams and all of that is part of a wider team which supports our fintech clients and goes out and positions what we do best at Citi to those clients.

                  Citi’s organizational structure

                  I sit within the product organization. We also have side by side coverage organizations – what we at Citi call corporate banking – as well as our commercial bank. Commercial banking tends to be the entry point for a relatively new-to-market fintech: these are firms that have been operating for a couple of years, they’re low turnover, but have a good runway ahead of them.

                  My team’s job is to provide or connect fintechs with what we do within the transaction bank –the business that manages the overall relationship across all products. Citi also hast the commercial bank, which would typically look after small to medium sized fintechs, and then the more mature unicorn type fintech would sit within our banking organization.

                  I typically would service the fintechs that are more complex and have had several years of history under their belt, that are now at a stage where they have either expanded internationally or are continuing to expand internationally. That’s not to suggest that we don’t connect with our partners on the commercial bank, because what they’re looking after are fintechs at an early stage. But that early stage quickly becomes a later stage, and then there are opportunities for my team to plug into their strategy and provide them with the solutions they’re looking for to continue their growth. 

                  Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the individual, unless reflected in Citi’s Research Reports, are those of the speaker and may not necessarily reflect the views of Citi or any of its affiliates.  All opinions are made at the time of the recording and are subject to change without notice. The expressions of opinion are not intended to be a forecast of future events or a guarantee of future results.