Alacriti Executive Shares Perspective on Payments

Divyarani Raghupatruni, Senior Director of Product, Data and Orchestration at Alacriti recently talked banking transformation in 2025 and the future of payments with Banking Exchange.

1. Please take a look back at the landscape of the overall Payments industry in 2025 and tell us what you think has been the biggest transformation when it comes to banking and payments.

The biggest transformation in 2025 has been the convergence of real-time settlement, digital money, and intelligent data.

Real-time payments have hit critical mass, with billions of domestic transfers settled in seconds. The RTP® network raised its limits to $10 million, and the FedNow® Service crossed two million payments quarterly, changing domestic transfers from a batch process to something as instantaneous as a text message.

While domestic transfers are shaped by real-time payment networks, cross-border payments are headed to a new frontier with stablecoins and tokenized deposits. With the GENIUS Act providing regulatory clarity, larger banks and institutional players are embracing a world where programmable settlements are blended with the trust and compliance of traditional rails. Card networks (e.g., Mastercard and Visa) have become enablers, matching fintechs in the pace of innovation in stablecoins.

In the data layer, ISO 20022 became mandatory in November. Rich, structured data became the default, giving financial institutions real-time visibility into transaction patterns for fraud detection and compliance. Generative AI is steadily being piloted in banking operations, fraud analysis, credit decisioning, and personalized offers.

With real-time rails, programmable money, and intelligent data set as the foundation, banks and fintechs will soon be building towards a future of autonomous payments at scale.

2. How has the consumer changed and how will the consumer change in 2026 when it comes to how they process payments. How should banks adapt?

Consumers have fundamentally changed how they pay. Convenience, choice, and speed are non-negotiable. Users prefer the convenience of storing digitally instead of carrying plastic. Digital wallets are mainstream, powering 35% of online and 21% of in-store purchases, with Gen Z leading a 23% surge in use since 2022.

Consumers want choices that work seamlessly at checkout: P2P, account-to-account, wallets, and installment plans. They expect money to settle instantly. This shift isn't just consumer behavior. SMBs to enterprises are demanding similar flexibility, and banks that can't support the full range of payment methods risk losing ground.

How will consumers change in 2026? In the future of agentic payments, where consumers let AI agents handle transactions within set limits and preferences, payments become the invisible infrastructure, and trust becomes more visible. Consumers will want more than smooth checkout. They will want transparency into how their agent is transacting, who it's paying, and why. They will expect stronger security, better fraud prevention, and freedom to transact in different forms of money: fiat, stablecoins, and tokenized deposits.

Banks that can deliver both the invisible layer and the trust layer, while supporting choice, convenience, and speed in how value moves, will win. But staying ahead requires a fundamental shift in thinking. Banks will need to move beyond channels and build platforms that offer real flexibility. The moat will be established in the trust layer. Investment in AI-powered fraud detection and operations becomes the differentiator when payments are autonomous and invisible.

3. With AI emerging, fraudsters are getting extremely shrewd. How does Alacriti help its financial institutions prevent fraud and protect their customers and what will banks need to do in 2026?

Alacriti is tackling the rise of AI-driven fraud by deploying a multi-layered defense strategy, specifically designed for instant payments and the dynamic threat landscape that targets them. Rather than relying on a single tool, we curate and marshal best-in-class tools and techniques to create a complementary array of protective layers, including identity verification, entity risk assessment, and AI-powered transaction anomaly detection. This allows our financial institutions to leverage the industry's most sophisticated real-time interventions without the burden of managing complex vendor ecosystems or building deep internal expertise from scratch.

Looking toward 2026, banks will need to shift their mindset from a 'one-and-done' security implementation to one of consistent iteration. As fraudsters continue to innovate, financial institutions must move past the fear that currently keeps many in a 'Receive Only' mode for instant payments. To stay competitive, they will need to rely on partners who can continuously curate and update these defensive layers, giving them the confidence to fully adopt 'Send' capabilities on rails like the FedNow Service and the RTP network with the assurance that their fraud prevention is evolving as fast as the threats.

4. Will there be a transformation in 2026 when it comes to credit in general and credit card usage specifically?

Boundaries between credit cards and alternative payments are blurring. Alternative payment methods like BNPL aren’t replacing credit cards. Instead, issuers and fintech are integrating flexible payment features into their products. We are seeing hybrid solutions that combine credit infrastructure with installment flexibility. Virtual cards are on the rise in corporate environments, with 70% of U.S. corporations adopting them for enhanced security and spend control.

Embedded finance is transforming credit distribution with financial products offered through non-financial platforms. Credit is becoming an invisible layer embedded directly into commerce platforms. Loyalty programs are shifting from transactional rewards to comprehensive ecosystems with proprietary lounges, travel portals, and lifestyle partnerships.

The transformation will continue to be seen in how flexibly credit is embedded everywhere, authenticated seamlessly, and integrated into financial ecosystems. Additionally, the security, trust, and protocol layer will become more prominent with Agentic commerce.

5. Stablecoins and digital currency in general is perhaps the hottest topic today when it comes to financial institutions. Will this impact Payments, and how will this impact financial institutions?

Stablecoins have moved from experimentation to operational and are already impacting the payments industry. The digital money market has grown noticeably. We are seeing volume, use cases, and regulatory clarity with GENIUS. Banks are still formulating an impact and approach to leverage this opportunity without cannibalizing their traditional banking products. Estimates suggest stablecoins could drain trillions in deposits from the banking system, forcing banks onto more expensive funding. But ignoring this opportunity could lead to irrelevance. Card networks and fintechs such as Visa, Mastercard, Stripe are enabling stablecoin spending at scale. Banks that don't participate risk becoming on/off ramp while others capture payment flow and client relationships, on top of their deposits.

Banks are weighing three paths for digital money: integrating third-party stablecoins, issuing their own, or developing tokenized deposits. Stablecoins will be favored in use cases where traditional rails already struggle, such as cross-border payments, B2B settlements, real-time treasury operations, 24/7 settlement, and other scenarios where speed and programmability matter more than existing interchange economics. Domestic consumer payments, however, will likely remain on traditional rails where the economics, protections, and infrastructure already work. Tokenized deposits offer a strategic middle ground, preserving the current regulatory framework while enabling new capabilities like programmability and atomic settlement.

Thank you for sharing your perspective with us.

Divya will be one of the keynote speakers at the Banking Exchange Stablecoins Virtual Conference on January 13. You can register here: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/4939241/821E409806E534E90FB92AD5ACFFC722?partnerref=BE_story

Divyarani Raghupatruni is Senior Director of Product, Data and Orchestration at Alacriti,  where she leads product strategy for Stablecoins, faster payments, and Data. With 15+ years in fintech and payments, she spent six years at Block (Square) as Principal Product Manager, redesigning cart and checkout products, reporting, and AI data platforms while establishing AI-first product practices. Her career includes building cross-border payments products at Transfast, which was acquired by Mastercard. Divya writes about the convergence of data, AI, and payments infrastructure on her Substack, focusing on stablecoins, tokenization, and agentic commerce.