Beyond cards and wallets: what the Geneva roundtable revealed about the future of payments

Following its earlier announcement, SwissFx took part in the Swiss FinTech Association event “Beyond Credit Cards & Wallets: Shaping the Future of Payments” in Geneva on 24 June 2026. The event brought together payment and fintech professionals, with speakers from eBay, PaymentsVibes, Worldline, Mt Pèlerin and and a panel discussion moderated by Rachael Camp, Co-founder of SwissFx.

Discussions covered marketplace payment strategies, digital wallets, buy now, pay later (BNPL), mobile point-of-sale, instant payments, pay-by-link, open banking, tokenisation, stablecoins and asset tokenisation. The format created a useful exchange of perspectives across the payment ecosystem, from customer experience to infrastructure and regulation.

Payments are moving beyond the card transaction

One of the clearest takeaways was that payments are no longer treated as a separate final step. They are becoming part of the buying journey itself.

For customers, the direction is towards faster, more flexible and more invisible payments. A customer may expect to pay through a wallet, a local mobile payment app, a payment link, a marketplace flow or a buy now, pay later option, depending on the context.

This is especially noticeable in sectors such as luxury retail, where the payment stage is becoming part of the brand experience. If the purchasing journey is personalised, simple and high-touch, the payment experience is expected to feel equally aligned.

Local payment methods create a more fragmented landscape

Another important theme was localisation. Businesses may benefit from offering payment methods that customers already use in their home market, such as TWINT in Switzerland, Wero in parts of Europe, Swish in Sweden or Vipps in Norway.

For international merchants, platforms and marketplaces, this can support trust and conversion at checkout. However, it also means that payment operations become less standardised. Instead of relying mainly on card payments, companies may need to manage several local methods, payment service providers, settlement schedules and reporting formats.

Simplicity at checkout can move complexity downstream

From the customer’s perspective, a modern payment can feel immediate and seamless. Behind the scenes, the business still has to understand what happens after the payment has been accepted.

Funds may arrive through different providers, in different currencies and at different times. Finance teams may need to reconcile multiple payout reports, identify where currency conversion occurs, check the FX margin applied to each conversion and monitor any exposure created between the sale and the settlement of funds.

This is where payment innovation becomes an operational and financial question. The challenge is to maintain visibility over cash flow, cross-border money movement, compliance requirements, fraud controls and data security.

Human oversight remains important as payments become more automated

Agentic commerce was also part of the discussion. The key point for businesses is not only what automation can do, but where responsibility sits.

Artificial intelligence may support recommendations, routing, fraud monitoring or customer experience. But when payments, funds and financial decisions are involved, companies still need clear approval rules and human oversight. Automation can make a process faster, but it should not remove accountability.

From payment innovation to payment control

The Geneva roundtable confirmed that the future of payments is not only about new payment methods. It is also about the systems that help businesses keep control as payment choices expand.

As payment methods become more local, flexible and embedded in the customer journey, businesses need to understand what happens beyond checkout. For internationally active companies, that means tracking currencies, conversions, payouts, reconciliation and risk.

SwissFx supports businesses at this stage by making international payment and currency operations more predictable and easier to manage through multi-currency accounts, currency exchange, local payments and collections, and FX risk management.

All photos shown in this article are used with permission from the Swiss Fintech Association and without modification. SwissFx does not own the rights to these images.