Banking and Payments Industry Reports Wave of Innovations
Bank of America saw a sharp rise in real-time payment volumes after The Clearing House raised the transaction limit on its RTP network. From January to July, BofA’s RTP volume jumped 48% compared with the same period in 2025, and corporate transactions over $1 million surged 351%. The limit increase, from one million dollars to ten million dollars, took effect in 2025 and appears to have unlocked higher-value transactions for businesses.
Citi is partnering with Coinbase to let institutional clients accept stablecoin payments through its Spring platform. The service automatically converts digital currency to fiat, and will allow merchants to take stablecoin payments from more than 150 million users globally. At the same time, CPI Card Group renewed a 24-year agreement with Vericast, a banking-tech distributor, to supply payment-card solutions to financial institutions.
The cannabis sector also saw innovation. Blaze, a retail tech platform, introduced Blaze MCP, an AI-powered tool that integrates with ChatGPT, Claude and other assistants to streamline point-of-sale, e-commerce and marketing for dispensaries. Shopify expanded support for WebMCP, a standard for AI agent interactions, enabling structured checkout tools, including Shop Pay, for eligible merchants.
Juniper Research projects that global softPOS installations, mobile-based point-of-sale systems, will reach 159 million by 2031, up 600% from 22 million in 2026.
Transactions Network Services launched a bring-your-own-app service that lets operators build custom applications for its Android-based unattended payment terminals. Chainlink also announced plans to connect financial institutions’ systems to Swift’s blockchain ledger. Finastra introduced Repair Recommendations, an AI tool designed to help banks manage payment errors amid rising transaction volumes.
Zelle expanded its community initiatives with a small-business accelerator program and free NYC Ferry rides for five routes each Thursday in October.
