– LAYER TWO

The leadership blueprint: Forging advantage amid increasing complexity

The Leadership Blueprint shows that true payment leaders combine executive sponsorship, strong talent, and agile infrastructure to turn modernization into a competitive edge. Organizations that embrace all three pillars are not just adapting to change, they are shaping the future of payments.

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Forging advantage amid
increasing complexity
Not all capabilities contribute equally to leadership. We used a statistical analysis of the survey responses from 500 industry executives to identify the traits most strongly linked to leadership in payments. These findings define a clear, evidence-based blueprint for how to excel in a complex payments ecosystem and unlock payments as a competitive differentiator.
The analysis shows a gap between perception and reality. 69% of organizations consider themselves front-runners, yet only 44% prioritize the most impactful trait: payments innovation as a C-suite priority. This insight is the starting point for the Leadership Blueprint: a set of attributes that distinguish organizations trying to keep pace from those moving the industry forward.

The anatomy of leadership

While many organizations believe they are front-runners in payments, some are truly coming out on top. Through our research, we identified eight leadership attributes that drive more than 70% of the leaders in payments. These are not abstract ideals. They are measurable practices that separate companies advancing the industry from those struggling to keep pace.
The eight leadership attributes by their impact in payments:

26%
Payments innovation is a C-suite priority in my organization
8%
My organization can rapidly launch new payment products or adapt to regulatory changes
7%
We actively track emerging payment trends and adjust our strategy accordingly
7%
My organization attracts, develops, and retains top payments and technology talent
  • Payments innovation is a C-suite priority in my organization: 26%
  • My organization can rapidly launch new payment products or adapt to regulatory changes: 8%
  • We actively track emerging payment trends and adjust our strategy accordingly: 7%
  • My organization attracts, develops, and retains top payments and technology talent: 7%

6%
My organization has a clear long-term roadmap for payments modernization and investment
6%
We are actively phasing out aging payments infrastructure
6%
We prioritize investments in real-time payments, security, and interoperability
6%
N4We proactively anticipate and respond to shifts in consumer payment preferences
  • My organization has a clear long-term roadmap for payments modernization and investment: 6%
  • We are actively phasing out aging payments infrastructure: 6%
  • We prioritize investments in real-time payments, security, and interoperability: 6%
  • N4We proactively anticipate and respond to shifts in consumer payment preferences: 6%

The attributes predicting leadership in the payments industry. Impact scores shown are the result of a Principal Component Regression (PCR) analysis linking responses to “How would you rate your organization’s leadership in the payments industry?” with the agree–disagree scale ratings for 18 potential leadership attributes. This chart uses a top two box analysis.

The Leadership Blueprint
The eight leadership attributes can be formed into three foundational pillars that define high-performing payment organizations. Together, they offer a practical framework for all industry players including banks, merchants, and service providers (companies that send bills or offer subscription services) to move from ambition to action and lead with confidence in a complex ecosystem.
— Pillar One
Executive ownership and long-term vision

Standing out in payments begins with explicit sponsorship from the top, with a clear long-term vision that ensures alignment on things like investment sequencing, risk management, and new payments technology, such as payment hubs and adopting new payment types. For many organizations in the ecosystem (including financial institutions, merchants, and service providers), here’s what that looks like in practice:

  • Secure explicit sponsorship from the top for modern payment systems and capabilities. Ensure a clear long-term vision that aligns investment sequencing, risk management, and modernization priorities across the organization.
  • Commit to continuous improvement by building stable, interoperable platforms that deliver seamless customer experiences and new payment types, features, and functions that create a competitive advantage.
  • Treat payments as both a customer experience lever and a competitive differentiator, positioning them to drive loyalty, conversion, and deeper engagement across channels.
  • Invest in orchestration capabilities that enable greater reach and leverage more networks so leadership decisions directly connect to better outcomes for margin optimization, revenue growth, and customer lifetime value.
  • Plan for innovation with discipline, balancing readiness for next-generation technologies with the need for resiliency, compliance, and long-term returns.

These drivers reflect whether payments are viewed as executive-level concerns and whether modernization efforts are sustained and proactive. Instead, most companies (30%) aren’t prioritizing payments system innovation at the C-suite level.
— pillar TWO
Capability and talent activation

Leading in payments requires deep domain expertise, technical skill, and a culture of continuous learning. That means partnering with the right people or investing in technology and systems that can execute at scale. Equally important is the infrastructure that supports this talent: interoperable platforms, intelligent payment hubs, and AI‑driven systems that orchestrate activity across all payment networks and geographies. For financial institutions, merchants, and service providers, here’s how that can look:

  • Develop deep domain expertise and technical skill by creating payment centers of excellence and training programs that foster continuous learning across compliance, risk, product, and technology teams.
  • Pair talent with the right infrastructure, investing in interoperable platforms, intelligent payment hubs, and modular systems that enable scale, resiliency, and orchestration across all networks and geographies.
  • Combine AI-driven automation with skilled oversight in areas like fraud detection, sanctions screening, reconciliation, exception handling, chargebacks, and return policies to enhance efficiency while reinforcing trust.
  • Treat payments orchestration as an enterprise capability, ensuring a business strategy that goes beyond IT and includes marketing, product, and customer experience functions.
  • Partner strategically to strengthen capabilities, engaging with providers who bring the systems and expertise to accelerate modernization while supporting internal talent development.

Organizations that support strategic partnerships for talent and infrastructure gain the capacity to execute consistently, at scale, and mitigate the chance for failure. 
— pillar THREE
Agility and future readiness

To stay competitive, payment leaders need the ability to anticipate change, act quickly, and adjust to keep pace with customer expectations. Staying agile comes from modern infrastructure, modular design, and intelligent orchestration. It also depends on a culture that sees regulation as potential for innovation. Here’s how organizations can practice readiness:

  • Adopt modular, API-native infrastructure in partnership with technology providers to support rapid product launches and seamless adaptation to regulatory change.
  • Leverage AI-driven decisioning and analytics to enhance risk management, fraud prevention, forecast trends, personalized experiences, and accelerate approvals while reducing friction.
  • Treat regulations and standards as catalysts for innovation, viewing mandates such as ISO 20022 and open banking as opportunities to modernize and differentiate.
  • Continuously optimize payment and checkout flows with payments orchestration that adapts acceptance strategies, methods, and timing across channels, regions, and customer needs.
  • Stay prepared for regulatory mandates by adopting flexible software that constantly adapts with the changing requirements.

Summary
True leadership in payments is earned through action. These three pillars—executive ownership and long-term vision, capability and talent activation, and agility and future readiness—highlight the framework that top financial institutions, merchants, or service providers follow every day.
Executive ownership ensures payments are treated as a strategy, strong capabilities turn plans into measurable results, and agility stays ahead of a changing market. The organizations that embrace all three are not just keeping up with industry change, they are defining it.