A Week in Treasury: How Payments Are Changing
Published: October 21, 2026
In his regular column, TMI CEO Robin Page offers his take on developments in the world of treasury over the past few days. This week, he looks at payments in India and Indonesia, changes to South Africa’s payments system, tokenised deposits in the UAE, and the latest use of AI in cash forecasting.
A few developments in payments and treasury technology have caught my attention this week.
The first concerns India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI). A proposed 0.4% charge for merchants on transactions above Rs2,000 was due to come into effect on 15 October, but has now been postponed until after Diwali (November 8th).
The detail is important: this is not a charge on every UPI transaction, but it would represent a change after more than six years of zero-cost payments. It raises an interesting question about who ultimately pays for the continued development, security, and operation of payment infrastructure.
Indonesia appears to be moving in a different direction. Bank Indonesia has extended its 0% merchant discount rate for smaller QRIS (Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard) payments, while QRIS transaction volumes continue to grow very quickly.
This is particularly interesting because India and Indonesia are working towards connecting UPI and QRIS for cross-border payments. These systems may have begun largely as consumer payment services, but they increasingly matter to companies as well. Merchant costs, collections, reconciliation, fraud, payment data and FX all eventually find their way into the corporate treasury conversation.
I also noticed that South Africa plans to open its national payment system directly to non-bank participants, including fintechs, retailers, and telecom companies, from 2027.
On the face of it, this is about introducing greater competition and reducing costs. For corporate treasury teams, it could mean more choice over how payments and collections are managed. At the same time, having more providers inevitably raises questions about financial strength, regulation, data security, and who is responsible when a payment fails.
Another development that felt quite practical came from the UAE, where HSBC and Ant International have completed pilot transactions using tokenised deposits. These included -time dirham transfers within the UAE and US dollar transfers from the UAE to Hong Kong and Singapore.
Tokenisation can sometimes feel like a subject with more announcements than actual usage, but this appears closer to a working treasury application. It involves regulated commercial bank money being moved in real-time, rather than a company simply experimenting with cryptocurrency.
The questions for treasurers will probably be quite straightforward: can it connect with existing treasury systems, how is it accounted for, is it available around the clock, and can it work across different banks rather than within one banking network?
Finally, FIS has launched an ‘Agentic AI’ solution designed to help finance teams forecast cash flow and identify risks earlier. It brings together a company’s own information with external credit and public data to support cash forecasting, collections, liquidity, and risk management.
‘Agentic AI’ is becoming a popular phrase, and I am sure we will hear much more about it. From a treasury perspective, however, the real test will be whether it genuinely produces more accurate forecasts and better decisions. Treasurers will also want to know how recommendations can be checked, explained, approved, and audited.
My takeaway this week is that payments are becoming faster, more open, and increasingly connected to treasury technology. But each improvement also introduces new decisions around cost, control, security, and responsibility.
The technology may be changing quickly, but those basic treasury questions remain much the same.