Juniper Research noted in a new report that the Fintech sector is evolving fast. From stablecoins to agentic AI, their latest update examines the significant shifts that are now said to be redefining the payments landscape. Juniper Research also looks at the impact of digital identity solutions, and the evolution of the future of money anticipated in 2026.
According to Juniper Research, the main Fintech and payments trends include stablecoins or digital dollars rivaling the existing interbank settlement layer.
The team at Juniper Research noted that in 2026, they expect that stablecoin adoption will continue to grow.
With regulatory clarity from the GENIUS Act, payment rails “being developed and brought to market, and a clear demand for an upheaval of the current payments and settlement landscape, they see more and more interbank settlement networks either developing their own permissioned blockchain for the transfer of tokenised assets, such as stablecoins for payments, and financial companies issuing their own stablecoin solution as part of their wider customer
offering.”
In addition to this, Juniper Research says that agentic commerce will reshape B2B & consumer purchasing in 2026.
The report added:
“In 2026, we will see solutions powering agentic commerce from payments leaders expanding across the payment industry, with different solutions such as tokenisation, digital wallets or stablecoins used to power agentic commerce. Stablecoins have potential as they are essentially programmable, but they
face challenges around acceptance when compared with card payments, which are already near ubiquitous in the eCommerce market.”
Another prediction is that the EUDI wallet may redefine digital identity in Europe:
“The EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet is part of the European eIDAS 2 regulation and requires EU member states to have a digital wallet available to citizens by 2026. Across Europe, there are several existing digital wallet offerings available, from both civic and third-party vendors, created using widely varying infrastructures. The introduction of this regulation massively impacts the digital identity market, as it establishes standardised policies to follow.”
Some other predictions from the Juniper Research report:
- Tokenised Assets Will Enter the Mainstream: This is a widely-held belief among industry participants due the rise of the underlying blockchain tech and other advances in digitalization.
- GenAI to Transform Banking: Most industry professionals now think that generative AI will significantly enhance digital banking and more generally, the accessibility of nearly all digital financial services.
- Flexible Credentials Will Drive Payment Card Renaissance: More than likely, we will see advanced forms of meta-data informing decision-making including how a user is verified and how various information is associated with their online profile.
- AI Fraud Prevention Investment to Rise Amid Deepfake Threats: This is unfortunately inevitable as bad actors continue to leverage the latest tech to exploit unsuspecting users.
- Pay by Bank to Scale in the UK Via Commercial VRPs: These types of solutions should continue to enhance user experience (UX).
- No-code AML Adoption to Extend Beyond Banks: This is a natural consequence of technology adoption as no-code solutions are more easily deployed and their codebase may be a lot easier to maintain and update.
- Virtual Cards Will Take Off Within Travel Payments: These solutions have already taken off in various other industry segments because of the greater level of convenience and accessibility they offer to a diverse range of users.