Attila Doğan, Chief Product Officer, PPRO

Today we're delighted to speak with Attila, Chief Product Officer at PPRO, the leading local payments platform helping payment service providers and merchants grow globally.

As we head into 2026, Attila shares his predictions on the definitive shift of local payment methods from alternative to mainstream, the transformative potential of agentic payments and stablecoins, and the underestimated risks of geopolitical fragmentation in the payments landscape.

My questions are in bold - over to you Attila:

What's the biggest shift you expect across financial services in 2026?

The single biggest shift we anticipate is the definitive move of local payment methods (LPMs) from "alternative" to "as ubiquitous as cards." This is no longer a question of a niche market trend; it's a fundamental re-platforming of the global e-commerce payment landscape. LPMs are here to stay, already representing more than half of all global e-commerce payments today, clearly establishing them as the preference for the majority of shoppers worldwide.

This shift is accelerating rapidly. According to a report from market analysts McKinsey, LPMs are experiencing significant growth. Meanwhile, data indicates that the growth of card payments is slowing down drastically. The growth of LPMs is driven by consumer demand for convenience, regional regulatory changes, and higher acceptance rates in local markets where traditional card rails are either less prevalent or prohibitively expensive. As a result, businesses that continue to rely solely on card-based strategies risk being fundamentally disconnected from major growth markets.

For financial services, 2026 will be the year of realising the strategic imperative of this change. It means moving beyond a card-centric operational mindset and treating a diverse, locally-optimised payment portfolio as the baseline requirement for global scale and success. The future of payments is defined by local relevance, and businesses must evolve their infrastructure to effectively prioritise and manage this complexity.

Which emerging technology will have the most practical impact on payments and the FinTechs that support them?

The most practical and transformative technological shifts will be driven by two key developments: the emergence of agentic payments and the integration of stablecoins as a consumer payment method in e-commerce. Agentic payments represent a paradigm shift where AI-driven agents, acting on behalf of the consumer or merchant, autonomously execute and optimise payment decisions. This moves beyond simple routing to an intelligent system that manages liquidity, foreign exchange risk, and dynamically selects the best payment rail (including LPMs, cards, or stablecoins) at the point of transaction to maximise acceptance and minimise costs.

Furthermore, 2026 will be the year stablecoins achieve significant practical impact by transitioning from investment assets to widely accepted consumer payment methods in e-commerce. Their appeal lies in offering instant settlement, low transaction costs, and cross-border functionality that bypasses traditional, slow banking rails. For FinTechs, this provides a powerful new tool for global treasury management and a rails-agnostic platform to offer new services. This push is complemented by regulatory clarity, which is increasingly legitimising stablecoins for transactional use.

A related, high-impact area, particularly in Europe, is the increasing interoperability of LPMs, which can be thought of as "payment method roaming." This technical and commercial integration means that a single LPM solution can be accepted across multiple national markets, significantly lowering the barrier for merchants to scale across the continent. This interoperability initiative will drastically simplify the fragmented European payments landscape, making LPMs an even simpler and more compelling alternative to global card networks.

What risks or blind spots do you think the industry is underestimating as we move into 2026?

The biggest blind spot the industry is underestimating is the acceleration of geopolitical and regulatory fragmentation. Whilst the market-driven adoption of LPMs is a major trend, the resulting complexity poses a profound operational and compliance challenge that many organisations are not adequately prepared to address. The industry often focuses on commercial opportunities but fails to adequately plan for the impact of external, sovereign forces.

Geopolitical developments are increasingly manifesting as a push for regional data and payment sovereignty, which will significantly complicate cross-border transactions. This means an acceleration of stricter data localisation rules and a greater emphasis on using local payment rails over global networks for national security or economic reasons. For financial services and e-commerce players, trying to manage this on legacy systems leads to higher operational costs, increased risk of non-compliance, and a potential degradation of service quality in key growth markets. The sheer pace of diverging regulations and regional initiatives will overwhelm any organisation that lacks a unified, intelligent framework for payment management.

The core risk is systemic fragility arising from trying to integrate and maintain hundreds of disparate connections whilst facing an unpredictable and diverging regulatory landscape. This unmanaged fragmentation is a hidden liability that threatens to cap international expansion efforts and erode margins if not addressed through a strategic, unified approach to payment orchestration and multi-jurisdictional compliance.

What strategic priority should financial services stay focused on to stay competitive in the payments sector in 2026 and beyond?

The paramount strategic priority must be achieving intelligent payment management and consolidation. Given the definitive shift towards LPM ubiquity and the accelerating risk of geopolitical fragmentation, success will be determined by the ability to unify a diverse global payments portfolio under a single, smart management layer. This moves beyond simply offering diverse payment methods; it's about establishing a central operational hub that manages connectivity, ensures multi-jurisdictional compliance, normalises all data streams, and applies AI-driven optimisation across every transaction. Only by solving for complexity at this foundational level can financial services keep pace with global e-commerce.

To stay competitive, organisations must fundamentally change their approach to infrastructure. They need to invest in a rails-agnostic platform that enables them to plug into virtually any payment method (card, digital wallet, bank transfer, or buy now, pay later) via a single point of integration. This operational model transforms the cost of expansion from an exponential liability to a marginal one, freeing up resources to focus on core innovation and strategic client engagement rather than perpetual maintenance of disparate systems. The management layer becomes the strategic "universal translator" for global payment data, providing the consistent and actionable view of performance essential for C-level decision-making.

Ultimately, the future belongs to those who master the complexity of local payments at a global scale. This means prioritising a solution that maximises transactional "uptime," reduces fraud, and boosts conversion rates for every merchant client, regardless of location or preferred payment method. Financial services partners that lead with a unified payment strategy will become indispensable to global commerce, cementing their relevance and competitiveness well beyond 2026.

Thank you to Attila for sharing these insights on the future of payments.

To learn more about PPRO's local payments platform, visit their website or connect with Attila on LinkedIn.