Taken together, the executive discussions chart exactly how, across four key themes, the \u201cUnsung Heroes\u201d that make complexity invisible, reliability boring and trust intuitive are reshaping the payments ecosystem.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Operational Resilience as a Strategic Advantage<\/a><\/li>\n
- Data Quality and Governance as Business Enablement<\/a><\/li>\n
- Modernization of Identity and Authentication<\/a><\/li>\n
- Emerging AI-Driven Interaction and Payment Modalities<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This shift and its implications are likely to favor organizations that think systemically rather than incrementally. It may reward long-term investment over short-term optimization. And ultimately, it may raise the bar for what end users expect from any interaction involving money.<\/p>\n
[branded_divider]<\/p>\n
Operational Resilience as a Strategic Advantage<\/h2>\n
As commerce becomes always-on and global by default, downtime has shifted from an IT problem to a business-wide issue.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Paysafe-logo-blue-2025.png\")
\u201cBusinesses want to work with payments organizations that are reliable, effective, and have a broad set of products. Trust and being able to operate flawlessly<\/a> are a base expectation for consumers and merchants,\u201d Paysafe<\/a> Chief Operating Officer Roy Aston<\/a> told PYMNTS.<\/p>\nA payment outage during peak demand doesn\u2019t just interrupt transactions; it erodes customer confidence, damages partner relationships, and invites competitors to step in.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/entersekt-logo.png\")
\u201cWe had 100% uptime this year. What you want is a Black Friday and not a blackout Friday,\u201d Entersekt<\/a> Chief Strategy Officer Dewald Nolte<\/a> said. \u201cOur Operations team<\/a> is absolutely the unsung heroes.\u201d<\/p>\nIn this environment, reliability and resilience have become differentiators.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Boost-Logo-November-2024.png\")
\u201cPlatform resiliency and business continuity planning<\/a>, in my opinion, has been our number one unsung hero,\u201d Rinku Sharma<\/a>, chief technology officer at Boost Payment Solutions<\/a>, told PYMNTS.<\/p>\nThis is especially true in payments, where trust is fragile, and switching costs are lower than they appear. Consumers may forgive a slow app; they are less forgiving when it involves their money. Businesses choosing payment partners now scrutinize operational resilience alongside pricing and features.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/One-Inc-logo-2025.png\")
\u201cMy infrastructure team, cloud, site reliability and database are remarkable<\/a>. … We already had a high availability configuration, but this year we implemented, through our infrastructure group, high multi-region disaster recovery,\u201d One Inc<\/a> Chief Information Officer Elizabeth Hoemeke<\/a> told PYMNTS.<\/a><\/p>\nAfter all, the operationally resilient firm doesn\u2019t just survive shocks, but compounds its advantage while others retrench.<\/p>\n
[branded_divider]<\/p>\n
Data Quality and Governance as Business Enablement<\/h2>\n
If resilience is the ability to operate under pressure, data quality is the ability to decide under uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur biggest advantage is the depth and diversity of the payment data that we manage \u2026 having that consolidated into a single governed environment allows us to create actionable insights,\u201d Sharma\u00a0at Boost told PYMNTS. \u201cAll of the capabilities needed for a future-state Boost are reliant on having good data governance.\u201d<\/p>\n
As data becomes central to commerce, compliance, data quality and governance are emerging as foundational enablers of trust and scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo operate in all those different countries and to operate really well, whether it\u2019s internal data and insights, risk management, or enabling sales and marketing, all of that gets sourced from having great high-quality data, and being able to do phenomenal things with that data,\u201d Paysafe\u2019s Aston told PYMNTS.<\/p>\n
Clean, well-governed data improves machine learning outcomes. Clear consent frameworks increase customer confidence in personalization. Strong auditability accelerates partnerships with enterprises and regulators.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Trulioo-logo-2025.png\")
\u201cOne big unsung hero for us is the data source partners<\/a> we work with to bring in data,\u201d Trulioo<\/a> Chief Technology Officer Hal Lonas<\/a> said, adding that the company does not simply ping those sources. Trulioo ingests and maintains them at scale, enabling real analysis rather than simple lookup responses.<\/p>\nWhen leaders trust the data, decisions accelerate. One Inc\u2019s Hoemeke told PYMNTS that data is central to her firm\u2019s strategy, helping insurers understand payment trends and customer behavior over time. In an industry where margins are tight and expectations are rising, such visibility increasingly differentiates platforms.<\/p>\n
[branded_divider]<\/p>\n
Modernization of Identity and Authentication<\/h2>\n
Identity is no longer just about keeping bad actors out. It is about letting the right actors in, at speed, with confidence.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/i2c-logo-october-2025.png\")
\u201cWe\u2019ve all suffered the frustration of not being able to authenticate<\/a> that we are who we say we are,\u201d John Bresnahan<\/a>, global head of operations at i2c<\/a>, told PYMNTS.<\/p>\nLegacy identity models built around static credentials, perimeter-based assumptions and fragmented systems are ill-suited to today\u2019s emerging reality. They introduce friction for users while leaving gaps that attackers exploit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re able to prevent up to 40% of fraud with a 0.5% customer friction level,\u201d Bresnahan added, noting that only a few years ago, catching 40% of fraud attempts at scale would have required far more user friction spanning steps like step-up authentication, manual reviews or card declines.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bad actors only have to get it right once. We have to get it right every single time,\u201d Boost\u2019s Sharma noted.<\/p>\n
At the same time, authentication and risk evaluation depend on device intelligence, behavioral analytics and repeat patterns. They are only as good as the data feeding them, Entersekt\u2019s Nolte said. \u201cIf you get garbage in, you get garbage out.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Maverick-Payments-logo.png\")
\u201cCompliance isn\u2019t a checkbox, it\u2019s embedded<\/a> into our design,\u201d Maverick Payments<\/a> Vice President of Product Justin Downey<\/a> told PYMNTS.<\/p>\n[branded_divider]<\/p>\n
Emerging AI-Driven Interaction and Payment Modalities<\/h2>\n
If identity defines who you are, and data defines what you know, AI-driven interactions are what increasingly define how value is exchanged.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a technologist, I think of that as a modern extension of \u2018everything\u2019s an API.\u2019 We\u2019re not far away from everything being an autonomous agent, able to interact and create these ubiquitous ecosystems,\u201d Paysafe\u2019s Aston said.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence will transform interfaces from static transactions into adaptive conversations. In some cases, it already is.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Greendot-logo.png\")
\u201cWe are looking and exploring<\/a> into some ways where we can use AI to gather customer data and insights,\u201d Green Dot<\/a> Chief Product Officer Melissa Douros<\/a> said, calling \u201cuser feedback\u201d this year\u2019s unsung hero for Green Dot.<\/p>\n\u201cThere may be agents running around buying things on your behalf, but do you trust the agent?\u201d Trulioo\u2019s Lonas said. \u201cWhere did it come from? What\u2019s it going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Trulioo\u2019s role, he added, will be to validate who created the agent, who it represents and how it interacts with businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s probably unfair to call AI an unsung hero. It\u2019s pretty sung,\u201d i2c\u2019s Bresnahan said.<\/p>\n
As AI models and systems advance, accurate voice transcription is becoming a real possibility. \u201cThe accuracy levels are now incredible,\u201d he added. \u201cThey often refer to their word error rate, and it\u2019s 1 or 2%, meaning 98-99% accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n
What ties these four capabilities together is not technology, but integration. Too many enterprises pursue excellence in silos\u2014best-in-class resilience frameworks, data platforms, identity tools, or AI pilots\u2014without addressing how they reinforce one another.<\/p>\n
The leaders PYMNTS spoke to focus on doing the opposite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3335353,"template":"","categories":[73563],"tags":[4055,9617,23414,55319,14927,5398,9056,10829,152836,69547,9206,32898,133069,60852,10620,4072,167273,167274],"class_list":["post-3328215","study_posts","type-study_posts","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-money-mobility","tag-b2b","tag-b2b-payments","tag-boost-payment-solutions","tag-connected-economy","tag-entersekt","tag-green-dot","tag-i2c","tag-main-feature","tag-maverick-payments","tag-money-mobility","tag-news","tag-one-inc","tag-pymnts-news","tag-pymnts-tv","tag-trulioo","tag-video","tag-whats-next-in-payments-unsung-heroes","tag-whats-next-in-payments-paysafe","series-whats-next-in-payments"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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- Data Quality and Governance as Business Enablement<\/a><\/li>\n