The Green Sheet Online Edition
May 26, 2025 • 25:05:02
Letter from the editor
When Walmart takes notice, you know a trend has traction. The retail giant is exploring how consumers are beginning to use agentic AI—autonomous digital agents that pursue goals without constant prompts—to shop smarter and faster. And, as you'll read in this issue's lead article, they're not alone. From Visa and Mastercard to PayPal and Stax Payments, industry leaders are laying the groundwork for AI agents to not only assist in search and decision-making but also handle payments and detect fraud. As agentic AI shifts from concept to commerce, the payments world is entering a pivotal new chapter—one defined by speed, personalization and a reimagined consumer experience.
This issue’s contributors also delve into areas that are shaping payments today. Topics addressed include how legacy infrastructure, technical complexity and fragmented certification processes continue to hinder full U.S. EMV adoption; how the rise of SaaS and HaaS business models is transforming ISO and MLS relationships with POS dealers and software partners, heightening the need for payment professionals to choose tech alliances wisely; the case for processor redundancy, emphasizing the risks of single-processor dependencies and the importance of building resilient platforms to avoid outages; and a deep dive into payment orchestration revealing how this once-niche infrastructure solution is becoming essential for businesses seeking agility, scalability and cross-market optimization. In the EV space, one contributor explores how inconsistent, frustrating payment experiences are holding back wider adoption, and calls for standardization and intuitive, card-based solutions. Another expert unpacks a change in Europe’s payments landscape: opening of NFC access to A2A wallets, which could disrupt card dominance in-store.
In the news, we've highlighted a nationwide Zelle outage that exposed vulnerabilities in digital payments, sparking calls for better vendor diversification; a report on mixed economic signals, with small businesses struggling for funds and consumers wary despite modest job growth; New York's licensing of BNPL lenders, stepping in where federal oversight receded; Mastercard and MoonPay's partnership to bring stablecoin payments to over 150 million locations and boost crypto-fiat integration; and BEC scams, which drained $8.5 billion from U.S. firms over three years, prompting renewed focus on ACH fraud prevention.
Please also check out our product and innovator profiles, as well as updates on recent industry milestones. For questions or comments, email greensheet@greensheet.com. And remember, send your press releases to press@greensheet.com—we want to spread the word about your latest achievements. 
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