The PYMNTS team caught up with experts in the payments field to ask them their views on industry trends, predictions for the coming year and what their ideal payments system looks like.
Chris Winship, partner at FTV Capital, shared his thoughts on how the payments industry has overcome a number of obstacles in 2015 to set up a potentially game-changing 2016 and beyond.
CW: eCommerce and mCommerce are the big trends as they relate to payments. The world is still very much driven by cash and plastic at a high level, but it’s being changed very quickly by cards as transactions are moving online and into mobile devices. Security and fraud are also gaining some steam. As transactions move online, it raises a whole host of issues. Most of our clients that moved toward eCommerce and mCommerce were also very interested in their security capabilities and compliance with Visa, MasterCard and companies like that.
CW: I’m actually expecting more of the same. From a macro-economic perspective, what I see in the U.S. economy is quite strong – interest rates are low and unemployment is low. Specific to fintech and payments, the interesting trend I’m watching is the bigger startups going public and consolidating. In order to meet the growth expectations of public markets, they can’t do it on their own organically – they need to acquire. This was a big year for consolidation, but I think 2016 is going to be even bigger. Cross-border payments will also be big next year. When things go online and mobile, it really opens things up to the world. Five years ago, the technology and payments ecosystem didn’t exist, but there are now a bunch of companies out there that can help merchants do all that.
CW: Transparent but seamless. The best example I can use is Uber. Everyone uses Uber now and you don’t even think about the payment. It just magically happens. You sign up and put your credit card number in and nobody even thinks about it anymore. That is the holy grail of payments. You need to be able to move money and deal with all these complex things, but you still need to keep it transparent and seamless for the consumer. It’s happening, but it’s not ubiquitous. It’s just starting to go in that direction, and that’s what I see as the goal.
OpenAI’s CEO says the generative artificial intelligence (AI) startup has reached approximately 800 million people.
“Something like 10% of the world uses our systems, now a lot,” said Sam Altman, whose comments at a Friday (April 11) TED 2025 event were reported by Seeking Alpha.
Host Chris Anderson pointed out that Altman had said his company’s user base was growing rapidly, doubling in a “just a few weeks.”
The report noted that OpenAI’s growth has been helped along by viral features like the ability to generate images and videos in a range of styles, such as that of legendary Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli.
Last month, Altman said the company, maker of ChatGPT, had added a million users in one hour. Asked during the TED event if the company had considered compensating artists for creating works in their style, Altman said there could be prompts that could trigger payments for specific artists.
“I think it would be cool to figure out a new model where if you say, ‘I want to do it in the name of this artist,’ and they opt in, there’s a revenue model there,” Altman said.
Altman added the company had guidelines to prevent the AI model from generating images in the styles of specific artists or creators. He also discussed the company’s work on AI agents, models that can operate autonomously on behalf of users.
In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote last week about ways the technology can help companies hoping to alleviate the cost of new tariffs. While those levies will eat into the bottom line of many businesses, AI can help reduce costs while ensuring productivity stays up.
Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has shown that 82% of workers who use generative AI at least weekly say it increases productivity, even though half of these workers also worry that AI would replace them at their jobs.
“AI can also facilitate material selection by assessing availability, compliance and cost implications, which helps brands find substitute materials when needed without compromising on quality or compliance with regulatory standards,” said Tarun Chandrasekhar, president and CPO at Syndigo.
Still, Pierre Laprée, chief product officer of SpendHQ, told PYMNTS that while AI has a part to play, it’s “misguided” to believe that AI will automatically offset rising costs from shifts in trade policy.
“Tariffs are complex, and so is procurement,” he said. “You need more than an algorithm — you need clean, structured, specific data. Without that, AI won’t reduce risk. It will amplify it.”
