AI in payments: efficiency now, transformation later

Finextra and Volante will host an online webinar that examines the role of artificial intelligence in payments, weighing immediate operational gains against longer-term changes to payment infrastructure. The organisers have not disclosed the event date.

The session will feature Nadish Lad, Global Head of Product and Strategic Business at Volante Technologies, with Teresa Connors of Finextra as moderator. Panelists will outline current uses of AI in payments operations, including streamlining workflows, reducing manual steps, improving exception handling and strengthening fraud detection.

Speakers will consider whether firms are deploying AI mainly to cut costs and improve efficiency or positioning AI as a strategic layer to guide broader changes in payments systems. The discussion will cover how AI could move from back-office automation into systems that actively influence payment routing.

The payments environment now includes traditional bank rails, faster real-time schemes and new options such as stablecoins and other digital currencies. Panelists will describe how route choice for a single transaction can depend on transaction value, currency, geographic corridor, required speed, cost, available liquidity and compliance risk, and how AI could assess those factors in real time to select the most appropriate path — a capability referred to as dynamic payment orchestration.

The webinar will also address governance and responsibility as AI takes on more decision-making. The panel will examine who should be accountable when an AI-recommended route causes a loss, delay or regulatory breach, and what controls financial institutions should deploy to monitor and audit automated decisions. Topics will include transparency requirements and model explainability.

Organisers will present both short-term operational improvements and longer-term implications for how money moves across multiple rails and asset types. The discussion will reference the growing use of alternative payment networks and digital assets and the increasing regulatory focus on AI use in financial services.

The event will aim to set out practical steps firms can take as they expand AI use from back-office tasks toward systems that steer payment flows.