The payments industry rarely stands still, and right now it is moving faster than ever. Contactless cards, digital wallets, buy now pay later, AI-driven services – these are the innovations that attract the headlines and shape how consumers experience payments. But as the industry gathers at this year’s Merchant Payments Ecosystem conference in Berlin, a more fundamental conversation is taking place: the transformation of the infrastructure that actually moves the money. For merchants, banks and payment service providers, modernising the systems that underpin every transaction is no longer a long-term aspiration. It has become an immediate strategic priority.
The Invisible Backbone
Customer-facing innovation depends entirely on what happens behind the scenes. Every contactless tap, every wallet transaction, every cross-border payment triggers a complex sequence of processes: authorisation, routing, clearing, reconciliation, compliance and risk management. If those underlying systems are rigid or fragmented, even the most compelling front-end product will struggle to scale or deliver a consistent experience.
The challenge is that many processing platforms were designed for a very different era – one built around batch settlement, closed networks, and predictable transaction flows. Today’s operating environment looks nothing like that. Businesses expect real-time settlement, seamless cross-border capability, and intelligent routing that continuously balances cost, risk and performance. Meeting those expectations requires more than incremental upgrades. It requires a fundamental shift in architecture.
The Real-Time Reckoning
Real-time payments have moved from premium feature to baseline expectation in a remarkably short time. According to Juniper Research, global real-time payment volumes will exceed 600 billion transactions by 2028, up from 252 billion in 2024. That growth is not simply a demand-side story – it reflects a structural shift in how financial institutions must operate.
Immediate settlement changes everything from merchant cash flow to bank liquidity management and fraud prevention. As a recent OMFIF report highlights, real-time payment systems must be built on infrastructure that is flexible enough to interoperate with emerging technologies and new forms of money, or risk constraining rather than enabling innovation. The critical point is that real-time capability cannot simply be layered onto legacy systems built for batch processing. It requires a modern, API-driven foundation capable of handling the speed, volume, and decision-making that instant transactions demand.
At RS2, we have seen directly how organisations that make this architectural investment are far better positioned to meet regulatory requirements, manage risk at the moment of payment, and deliver the seamless experiences that customers and merchants now take for granted.
AI Where It Matters Most
Artificial intelligence is everywhere in the conversation about payments, but the real value of AI is not in the customer interface. It is in the operational core of the transaction itself. A 2025 KPMG survey found that 86% of banks believe AI will be a source of competitive advantage, with 82% already increasing budget allocation to it.
The question is whether the underlying infrastructure can support that ambition.
Applied at the infrastructure level, AI can improve routing decisions, detect fraud in real time, and generate predictive insights that allow payment providers and merchants to act earlier and more intelligently. Visa, for instance, now processes over 500 million transactions daily through AI models designed to identify suspicious activity before it affects businesses or consumers. The results are measurable: higher approval rates, lower fraud losses, and improved operational efficiency across the payment lifecycle.
None of this is achievable with siloed or inflexible systems. Modular, data-driven platforms are the prerequisite for applying intelligence at scale. Organisations that invest in that foundation will find AI becomes a genuine operational advantage rather than a capability that exists in pilots but never reaches production.
Orchestration as a Competitive Capability
One of the defining characteristics of modern payments infrastructure is the ability to orchestrate transactions across multiple networks, acquirers, issuers, and payment methods from a single environment. Payment orchestration allows businesses to evaluate each transaction in real time and direct it to the most appropriate provider, rather than being locked into a single gateway or processor – improving approval rates, reducing costs, and building resilience into payment flows.
This is not only about operational efficiency. It is about adaptability. Market conditions shift.
Regulations evolve. New payment methods emerge in different regions. Organisations need systems that allow them to integrate new partners and expand into new markets without major redevelopment. A flexible orchestration layer is what makes that possible – allowing businesses to respond to change rather than be constrained by their own technology.
Building for What Comes Next
The infrastructure decisions organisations make today will define their capabilities for years to come. Scalable, modular platforms reduce technical debt, improve resilience, and simplify compliance with evolving regulations.
They also create the conditions for future services – whether that involves embedded finance, tokenisation, or deeper AI-driven decisioning. In 2025, institutions that treated digital infrastructure as the operational core rather than an overlay unlocked speed, scale, and resilience that point solutions alone could not deliver.
At RS2, we work closely with clients and partners to ensure that our platform supports this kind of collaborative, future-ready model. When the underlying infrastructure is open and interoperable, innovation across the ecosystem accelerates – for banks, fintechs, merchants, and the customers they serve.
The message from MPE Berlin is clear. Transformation does not start with the customer interface. It starts with the systems that power every transaction behind the scenes. Organisations that focus on those fundamentals will not only keep pace with industry change – but they will also be positioned to shape it.
Author: Radi El Haj, CEO at RS2
Radi El Haj, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of RS2
About the author
Radi El Haj is Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of RS2, global provider of payment processing infrastructure and technology solutions, where he leads the company’s global strategy to deliver next-generation payment processing infrastructure for banks and financial institutions worldwide. With more than 25 years in the payments industry, Radi has built deep expertise across issuing, acquiring, clearing and settlement, e-commerce, and financial accounting architecture.
