Research

The prepaid market is entering a new phase, where measurement depends less on unused balances and more on how programs drive spending, loyalty, and engagement. In 2027, gift cards will become growth tools, small and locally owned merchants will ...

Small business banking faces a rapidly evolving set of threats in 2027. Fintechs and neobanks are expanding their reach, general-purpose AI platforms are challenging banks’ role in financial management, and fraudsters are using AI to launch incr...

AI is reshaping payments well before agentic commerce becomes mainstream. Payment orchestration is expanding beyond routing, bill-pay providers will predict failures before they happen, and banks will apply AI to the operational functions underl...

Small businesses rely heavily on their primary banks, but significant opportunities remain to deepen those relationships. Credit lines, business cards, deposit accounts, digital banking, and operational services all serve as important connection...

As APIs become a larger part of banking infrastructure and product distribution, understanding how they are used is a business priority, not just a technology concern. The right metrics can reveal which services are gaining traction, where devel...

A decade after the latest crop of neobanks took root, traditional financial institutions find themselves in an interesting position. The direct competitive threat from these challengers hasn’t fully coalesced, but what neobanks do well cannot be...

Merchants increasingly expect financial services and business technology to work together, pushing banks and other financial services providers deeper into the software market and into direct competition with software companies that have added p...

Gift cards and commercial incentives are driving closed-loop prepaid growth, while government programs and campus cards face mounting constraints. Through 2030, opportunities will vary sharply across retail, digital gaming, transit, petroleum, a...

AI can detect manipulative communications, recognize unusual financial behavior, and uncover relationships with suspicious recipient accounts. Open-source cyber frameworks lay the groundwork for how FIs can strengthen the development and evaluat...

Nearly a third of consumers have asked a chat-based AI tool about their personal finances in the past 30 days. This indicates that a seismic shift in where consumers turn for financial guidance is already underway. Financial institutions still h...