Executive summary The competitive battle in payments has moved from the checkout to the money itself. Canada’s six largest banks (RBC,TD,BMO,Scotiabank,CIBC and National Bank) have announced a joint project to build shared Canadian-dollar tokenised deposit infrastructure. The initial phase will focus on transfers between participating banks rather than consumer wallets. There is no launch date yet,but the project may later include other deposit-taking institutions. For merch

Executive summary Australia is not debating whether AI agents can buy products. That capability is already entering live payment trials. The question now being written into policy is more consequential: who pays when an agent makes the wrong purchase,uses the wrong payment rail or acts outside the customer’s intent? The Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2026 Review of Payments System Regulation has exposed a clear divide. Commonwealth Bank,Westpac and Macquarie want the RBA to eng

Suggested URL/slug:instant-payments-control-plane-race Meta title: The Control-Plane Race in Instant Payments | Quantum Payments Meta description: Pidgin’s partnership with Millennium Corporate Credit Union shows why payment orchestration, liquidity, risk and reconciliation now matter more than owning one instant-payment rail. Primary keyword: payment control plane Secondary keywords: instant payments orchestration, multi-rail payments, AI payment routing, FedNow, RTP, stable

On 10 September 2026, Visa, Mastercard and Ant International announced a collaboration that could become the most important infrastructure agreement in agentic payments so far: a shared Know-Your-Agent (KYA) interoperability framework. The announcement was made through BuildFin.ai, an industry platform convened by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Its purpose is straightforward: allow an AI agent verified within one payment ecosystem to be recognised by others without repe

SEO title: PhonePe, Visa and the Rise of Wallet Interoperability Meta description: PhonePe and Visa’s global payments push shows why merchants need wallet interoperability, AI payment routing and one unified commerce layer. Suggested slug:wallet-becoming-network-phonepe-visa-global-push-merchants On 9 September 2026, PhonePe and Visa reportedly launched a suite of cardless payment capabilities spanning contactless Tap to Pay, Cross-Border Scan to Pay and smartphone-based merc

Australia’s card surcharge ban will begin on 1 October 2026, removing surcharges on designated eftpos, Mastercard and Visa debit, prepaid and credit card transactions. The reform has been welcomed as a cost-of-living measure. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said removing surcharges will give Australians greater certainty at the checkout. But whether it will reduce inflation is a more complicated question. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) estimates that removing surcharges could

SEO metadata Suggested URL:https://www.quantumpayments.io/post/first-corporate-payment-swift-ledger-siemens-always-on-treasury Meta title: Siemens Proves the Case for Always-On Treasury | Quantum Payments Meta description: Swift’s first live corporate treasury payment for Siemens shows how shared ledgers can extend cross-border payments without replacing commercial bank money or existing banking workflows. Primary keywords: cross-border payments, real-time payments, tokenise

Brazil’s Pix and the European Central Bank’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement platform, or TIPS, could be heading towards a new kind of cross-border payment connection. The important qualification is that this is not a confirmed launch. The Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) and ECB are still discussing feasibility, with the ECB describing the work as a pre-investigation into a potential interlink between the two systems. Reporting by Reuters via CNA, Folha de S.Paulo and Valor E

India’s NPCI is preparing to let trusted AI agents make small UPI payments without transaction-by-transaction approval. For merchants, this is less a new checkout button than a new operating model for consent, risk and payment performance. Published 2 September 2026 | Quantum Payments India’s Unified Payments Interface is preparing for its next major transition: from a payment rail used by people to a payment rail increasingly operated by software. According to a Reuters excl

SEO title: Visa and Nium’s 24/7 Stablecoin Settlement Pilot: Why It Matters Meta description: Visa and Nium’s MAS BLOOM pilot could move cross-border settlement beyond business days. Discover the treasury, interoperability and risk implications. Suggested slug:the-payments-calendar-is-breaking-visa-nium-24-7-stablecoin-settlement-pilot Primary keyword: 24/7 settlement Secondary keywords: stablecoin payments, cross-border payments, payment success rate, AI payments, AI payment