KIAN JACKSON

It’s May 2026, and if you’re a fintech founder or executive, the "plumbing" of the global financial system just became the most exciting thing in your boardroom. For decades, the way money moved across borders was a bit like sending a postcard: you dropped it in the mail, hoped the intermediaries didn't lose it, and waited three to five days for a "delivered" status. But right now, we are witnessing a "Great Settlement Showdown." The lines between legacy finance (TradFi) and

For decades, the Point of Sale (POS) terminal was the neglected piece of hardware sitting on the counter, a "dumb" pipe designed to move money from a customer’s card to a merchant’s bank account. It was a utility, like electricity or plumbing. You noticed it only when it stopped working. Fast forward to 2026, and the script has flipped entirely. If you’re still looking at your POS as just a way to take payments, you’re missing the biggest shift in retail technology since the

Hey Kian! Here is the deep dive into the RBA’s new "Draft Vision" for A2A payments. This is a massive shift for the Australian landscape: it’s essentially the roadmap for how we move from the "real-time" era of the NPP into the "programmable" era of tokenized assets. It’s perfect for the expert positioning we’re going for. The Australian payments landscape is standing at a historical crossroads. For the last decade, the narrative has been dominated by the rollout and success

We have reached the endgame for the most significant piece of financial legislation in the digital age. As of May 2, 2026, the Australian and global fintech sectors are holding their collective breath. The CLARITY Act (Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act) is no longer just a draft gathering dust on a Senate desk; it is the centrepiece of a high-stakes "Yield War" that will determine how money moves for the next decade. The next fortnight is critical. With the Senate Banking C

For over a decade, the gig economy has operated on a fundamental paradox. You can order a hot meal across a city and have it delivered to your door in thirty minutes, yet the person who delivered it and the merchant who cooked it often have to wait up to seven days to see that money hit their bank account. In a world of instant gratification, the "pipes" of global finance have remained stubbornly slow. Traditional banking rails: built on decades-old technology: are plagued by

In the world of retail and fintech, we often talk about "disruption" as a digital-first phenomenon. We look at neo-banks, decentralized finance, or AI-driven payment gateways. But sometimes, the most radical disruption happens in the most physical, traditional sectors imaginable. Enter Adrian Portelli, the founder of LMCT+, who is currently turning the Australian fuel industry on its head. With the launch of his first "discounted" petrol station in Preston, Melbourne, Portell

It’s April 2026, and the "future of work" in fintech isn’t a future anymore: it’s the current reality. If you’re sitting in a Payment Operations (PayOps) team today, the landscape looks fundamentally different than it did even 18 months ago. We aren’t just talking about better spreadsheets or "smarter" macros. We’re talking about a structural shift where AI is no longer a tool; it’s a team member. The headline might sound like clickbait, but the math is starting to back it up

For a long time, payments were viewed as the "plumbing" of a business: essential, usually hidden, and only noticed when something leaked. If you were a fintech founder or a digital merchant, your goal was simple: find a provider that was cheap, reliable, and stayed out of the way. You looked at processing fees, negotiated your basis points, and moved on to the "real" product work. But in 2026, the landscape has shifted. We are currently witnessing what industry experts call T

Australia’s payment landscape just got a massive jolt. If you’ve spent any time in a local cafe lately, you’ve likely felt the sting of the "tap and go" tax, that pesky 1.5% or 50-cent surcharge added to your morning flat white. Well, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has finally called time on the surcharge culture. But while the headlines are screaming about cheaper coffee, the real story for fintech founders and executives is buried much deeper in the RBA’s recent policy

Before we dive into the massive legislative shifts coming out of Washington, we need to talk about something happening right in your pocket. Dwayne Gefferie recently dropped some truth bombs on LinkedIn about the slow demise of the traditional co-branded credit card. You know the ones: the airline card that gives you miles you never use, or the department store card that offers 10% off a pair of jeans once a year. The reality? These legacy models are losing their edge, and th

For over a decade, the merchant acquiring industry was defined by a race to the bottom. It was a game of basis points, high-volume processing, and commoditised services where the lowest price usually won the mandate. But as we navigate the landscape of 2026, that era is officially dead. Today, the "Big 8": JPMorgan, Adyen, Global Payments, Worldpay, Fiserv, Nexi, Worldline, and Getnet: are no longer just processors. They have transformed into ecosystem orchestrators. Drawing

For decades, the global payments landscape has been less of a competitive market and more of a settled duopoly. If you’re tapping your phone at a cafe in Melbourne or swiping a piece of plastic in Paris, chances are the transaction is being routed through the rails of two American giants: Visa or Mastercard. But in Europe, a new challenger is finally moving from the "theoretical PowerPoint" stage into the "real-world execution" phase. It’s called the European Payments Initiat

In the world of fintech, we spend a ridiculous amount of time talking about fraud. We build massive firewalls, deploy complex machine learning models, and obsess over every basis point of fraud loss. But while we’re busy guarding the front door against the $33.4 billion lost to actual fraud globally, we’re letting $443 billion walk out the back door in the form of false declines. That is the "Billion-Dollar Blind Spot". According to research highlighted by Dwayne Gefferie in

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the global payments landscape lately, you’ll know that the goalposts aren't just moving: they’re being completely redesigned. As we charge through 2026, the strategy shifts we’re seeing from the giants are no longer about incremental gains. They are about fundamental survival in a world that has finally, irreversibly, gone digital-first. Dwayne Gefferie recently dropped a masterclass breakdown of the Mastercard 2026 Strategy, and if you’re a f

If you’ve been paying attention to the global payments landscape lately, you’ll know that the old guard of "dumb pipe" processing is effectively dead. As we navigate the complexities of 2026, the gap between simple transaction handlers and strategic growth partners has become a chasm. In his recent breakdown, "The Payments Strategy 2026," industry veteran Dwayne Gefferie highlighted a shift that every fintech founder and executive needs to bake into their roadmap: the transit

For over a decade, the narrative in fintech was one of consolidation. Stripe, the poster child of the silicon-valley-to-global-dominance pipeline, succeeded by offering the "everything" stack. It was a monolith of convenience: one API for payments, billing, fraud prevention, and reporting. If you were starting a company, you didn't think; you just integrated Stripe. But the winds are shifting. As we navigate the mid-2020s, the "all-in-one" dream is being replaced by a more so

Remember the last time you jumped out of an Uber and just... walked away? No fumbling for your wallet, no tapping a terminal, no signing a receipt. The payment just happened. That seamless moment represents a fundamental shift in how we think about transactions: and it's only the beginning. Welcome to the era of invisible payments, where AI is quietly dismantling the checkout experience as we know it. For fintech founders and executives, this isn't just a tech trend to watch.

The payments landscape is about to experience its biggest transformation since the introduction of contactless cards. As we head into 2026, startups and fintechs need to understand the seismic shifts reshaping how money moves, how consumers pay, and where the biggest opportunities lie. After analysing market data, regulatory developments, and emerging technologies, here are the key trends that will define the next wave of payment innovation – and what they mean for your busin

The AI hype train has been running full steam ahead in fintech for the past few years, but cracks are already starting to show. With 42% of companies having scrapped the majority of their AI projects by early 2025: up from just 17% a year earlier: we're witnessing the early signs of what could become a full-blown bubble burst. So what happens when the music stops? The answer isn't pretty, but it's not the apocalypse either. Let's dive into the real-world implications for fint

The cross-border payments landscape just shifted dramatically. On September 30, 2025, Visa Direct unveiled a game-changing stablecoin...