A research agenda, not completed reporting. These are the original topic questions and leads. Named companies, dates and outcomes require verification. Editorial operations and internal schemas remain private.

2. AI in financial services

2.1 Use-case map (evidence for each)

  • Fraud detection and transaction monitoring (network-level AI tools — e.g., Visa Protect/Mastercard Decision Intelligence claims — verify and label)
  • AML alert triage and investigation copilots
  • KYC document review and deepfake detection (link to Part 09)
  • Credit underwriting and decisioning (link to Part 06)
  • Customer service chatbots and generative AI assistants in banking apps (e.g., Bank of America Erica, Klarna AI assistant claims and later reversal toward human support — verify, NatWest/OpenAI, Commonwealth Bank, Nubank, Revolut AI assistant, Cleo — verify deployments)
  • Financial guidance and robo-advice with generative AI (regulatory boundaries; link to Part 07)
  • Accounting, AP automation, close, FP&A (link to Part 08)
  • Collections and hardship outreach
  • Coding assistants and internal productivity at banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley deployments — verify)
  • Compliance: regulatory change management, complaints analysis, marketing review

2.2 Governance, risk, and law

  • SR 11-7 model risk management and OCC 2011-12; application to generative AI (verify supervisory statements)
  • U.S. Treasury RFI on AI in financial services (2024) and report (verify)
  • CFPB positions on chatbots (2023 report — verify), adverse action and AI (link to Part 06), 2025 withdrawals
  • SEC predictive data analytics proposal withdrawal (link to Part 07); SEC "AI washing" enforcement (March 2024 — verify)
  • State laws: Colorado AI Act (delays — verify), Utah AI disclosure law, California automated decision-making regulations (CPPA — verify), New York DFS AI cybersecurity guidance (2024), Texas TRAIGA (verify)
  • Federal preemption efforts on state AI laws (2025–2026 executive action or legislation — verify)
  • EU AI Act: prohibited practices (February 2025), GPAI obligations (August 2025), high-risk obligations including creditworthiness and life/health insurance pricing (August 2026, with Digital Omnibus delay proposals — verify final timing)
  • UK: FCA AI Lab, AI live testing (verify), Bank of England/FCA AI surveys
  • Singapore MAS FEAT/Veritas, AI risk management guidelines (verify); Hong Kong HKMA GenAI sandbox (verify)
  • Third-party concentration risk in AI model providers (FSB reports — verify)

2.3 AI evidence protocol

For each claim: metric definition, baseline, sample/period, independent validation, false-positive/negative tradeoffs, fairness testing, cost, and whether results were published by a regulator, auditor, academic, or vendor.

3. Agentic payments and agentic commerce

3.1 Concepts

  • AI agents that search, decide, and initiate transactions on a user's behalf; human-present vs. delegated/autonomous flows
  • Authentication and authorization problems: proving user intent, mandates, spending limits, agent identity ("know your agent"), revocation
  • Liability and dispute rights when an agent buys the wrong thing (Reg E/Reg Z, card network rules, merchant terms — analysis of open questions)
  • Fraud vectors: prompt injection, malicious merchants targeting agents, credential exfiltration, agent impersonation
  • Merchant readiness: bot management vs. welcomed agents, catalog/API access

3.2 Initiatives tracker (seed list — verify each: date, stage, partners, availability)

  • Visa Intelligent Commerce (announced April 2025 — verify) and Trusted Agent Protocol (verify)
  • Mastercard Agent Pay and agentic tokens (announced April 2025 — verify); first agent transactions claims (verify)
  • American Express agentic developer tools (verify)
  • PayPal agent toolkit, PayPal–Perplexity partnership (verify), PayPal in ChatGPT (verify)
  • Stripe Agent Toolkit, Stripe and OpenAI Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) and Instant Checkout in ChatGPT (September 2025 — verify), Stripe shared payment tokens (verify)
  • Google Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) (September 2025 — verify) and partners
  • Coinbase x402 protocol for HTTP-native stablecoin payments (verify adoption)
  • Amazon "Buy for Me" and Alexa+ purchasing (verify)
  • Adyen, Worldpay, Checkout.com, and Klarna agentic initiatives (verify)
  • Shopify and other commerce platforms' agent integrations (verify)
  • Bank-side agent controls and consumer consent dashboards (verify any launches)
  • Standards bodies: EMVCo, FIDO Alliance, W3C work on agent authentication (verify)

3.3 Adoption evidence

  • Distinguish demos, developer previews, limited merchant pilots, and consumer GA
  • Collect any disclosed transaction counts or volumes (label source)
  • Consumer trust surveys (Tier 4; note sponsor)

4. Stablecoins

4.1 Fundamentals

  • Fiat-backed, crypto-collateralized, algorithmic (TerraUSD collapse, May 2022 — context); reserve composition; redemption rights; attestation vs. audit
  • Issuers and products (verify): Tether USDT, Circle USDC and EURC, PayPal USD (PYUSD, issued by Paxos), Paxos USDG (Global Dollar Network), Ripple RLUSD, First Digital FDUSD, Ethena USDe (synthetic — context), bank-issued stablecoins or consortium tokens (e.g., reported U.S. bank consortium plans, SocGen-FORGE EURCV, verify), fintech/retail-brand stablecoins (verify 2025–2026 announcements by retailers, banks, and fintechs; label announcements)
  • Market cap history (issuer data and named analytics sources), concentration, chain distribution

4.2 Regulation (verify all)

  • U.S. GENIUS Act (signed July 18, 2025): permitted payment stablecoin issuers (bank subsidiaries, federal qualified nonbank issuers, state-qualified issuers under $10B), 1:1 reserve requirements with specified assets, monthly reserve disclosures, prohibition on paying interest/yield to holders, AML obligations, insolvency priority for holders, foreign issuer comparability, effective date (earlier of 18 months after enactment or 120 days after final regulations — verify), implementing rulemakings and their status as of September 2026
  • Yield/rewards debate and market structure legislation (CLARITY Act — verify status)
  • EU MiCA: e-money tokens and asset-referenced tokens; significant EMT supervision by EBA; delistings of non-compliant stablecoins for EU users (verify); multi-issuance debate (verify)
  • UK: FCA stablecoin issuance and custody regime consultations; Bank of England systemic stablecoin regime (holding limits proposal — verify); legislation timing (verify)
  • Hong Kong: Stablecoins Ordinance (effective August 1, 2025 — verify), HKMA licensing
  • Singapore: MAS single-currency stablecoin framework (verify legislative implementation)
  • Japan: Payment Services Act amendments (2023), JPYC approval (verify)
  • Others: UAE, Brazil (stablecoin FX rules — verify), Canada, Australia

4.3 Payments use cases (verify real usage)

  • Cross-border B2B settlement and treasury (e.g., SpaceX/Starlink and others via Bridge — verify; Visa and Mastercard stablecoin settlement pilots — verify volumes)
  • Card-linked stablecoin spending (Visa/Mastercard crypto cards; Bridge-issued cards — verify)
  • Merchant acceptance (Stripe stablecoin payments relaunch 2024; Shopify USDC via Coinbase/Stripe — verify)
  • Remittances and dollar access in high-inflation economies (Argentina, Nigeria, Turkey — verify evidence from Chainalysis Tier 4 and central bank data)
  • Payroll and contractor payouts (Deel, Rise — verify)
  • Stablecoin infrastructure acquisitions (Stripe–Bridge closed February 2025, Stripe–Privy (verify), Mastercard/Coinbase interest in BVNK or Zerohash — verify outcomes, Circle Payments Network launch — verify)
  • Payments-focused blockchains (Stripe/Paradigm Tempo, Circle Arc, Plasma — verify launch stages)

4.4 Measuring real adoption (protocol)

  • Separate total on-chain transfer volume from adjusted volume (removing bots, internal exchange transfers, MEV, and wash activity); cite methodology (e.g., Visa Onchain Analytics dashboard with Allium — verify)
  • Record payments-attributable volume only where a provider discloses it or a transparent methodology exists
  • Compare to card and RTP volumes for context with matching periods
  • Label company-announced "annualized volume" as Tier 5

4.5 Risks

  • Depegs (USDC during SVB failure, March 2023), reserve runs, issuer concentration, bank-deposit disintermediation concerns (Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee and bank group estimates — label), illicit finance (Tron/USDT use in scams — verify), sanctions evasion, smart-contract and bridge risk, consumer protection gaps (no deposit insurance)

5. Tokenized deposits, funds, and real-world assets

  • Tokenized deposits vs. stablecoins (legal nature, insurance, interoperability)
  • Bank platforms (verify): JPMorgan Kinexys (formerly Onyx) and JPM Coin/JPMD deposit token on Base (verify), Citi Token Services, HSBC Orion and tokenized deposits, BNY, Société Générale-FORGE, Partior, Canton Network, Swift tokenization experiments
  • Tokenized money market and Treasury funds (verify AUM with dates): BlackRock BUIDL, Franklin Templeton FOBXX/BENJI, Ondo, WisdomTree Prime, Fidelity, JPMorgan tokenized MMF (verify); use as collateral and stablecoin reserves
  • Tokenized equities for retail (Robinhood stock tokens in EU, Kraken xStocks, Coinbase plans — verify; SEC stance and exemptions — verify)
  • Wholesale/central bank projects: BIS Project Agorá, ECB exploratory work on DLT settlement (Pontes, Appia — verify), Bank of England Digital Securities Sandbox, MAS Project Guardian, Project Ensemble (HKMA)
  • Evidence: AUM, transaction counts, secondary liquidity, investor base; distinguish issuance from active use

6. Central bank digital currencies

  • Retail vs. wholesale CBDCs; account- vs. token-based; privacy design; holding limits
  • Tracker (verify stages): digital euro (preparation phase; legislation status; target issuance timeline — verify), digital pound (design phase — verify decision), e-CNY (pilot scale), e-rupee (retail and wholesale pilots), Nigeria eNaira, Bahamas Sand Dollar, Jamaica JAM-DEX, Brazil Drex (pivot away from DLT — verify), Canada (retail CBDC work shelved 2024 — verify), Australia (Project Acacia, wholesale focus — verify), Sweden e-krona
  • U.S.: executive order prohibiting CBDC work (January 2025 — verify) and Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act status (verify)
  • Evidence on adoption rates for launched retail CBDCs (low uptake findings — verify)

7. Core banking, ledgers, and developer infrastructure

  • Core modernization vendors (verify): Thought Machine, Mambu, 10x Banking, Temenos, Finxact (Fiserv), Jack Henry, FIS Modern Banking Platform, Oracle, Pismo (Visa), Galileo, Nymbus, Zeta, Tuum
  • Ledger infrastructure for fintechs (verify): Modern Treasury Ledgers, Formance, TigerBeetle, Fragment, Column/Increase ledgers
  • Failure lessons: ledger and reconciliation gaps (link to Part 04 Synapse)
  • Payments and banking API developer experience: documentation quality, sandbox fidelity, idempotency, webhooks, versioning; rubric for evaluating APIs (Stripe, Adyen, Plaid, Unit, Modern Treasury, Increase, Checkout.com, Wise Platform)
  • Passkeys and biometrics in authentication (link to Part 09); digital identity wallets (EU Digital Identity Wallet deadline for member states — verify 2026; U.S. mobile driver's licenses and TSA acceptance — verify)
  • Quantum-safe cryptography migration (link to Part 09)

8. Trend classification

Classify each trend with evidence and confidence, using the master categories:

Trend Classification (to research) Key evidence needed
AI fraud detection at networks and banks Available now (verify) Regulator/audited evidence of performance
Generative AI customer assistants Available now / early commercial (verify) Deployment scope, containment, complaint data
Generative AI financial guidance Early commercial / experimental (verify) Regulatory permissions, accuracy studies
Agentic commerce (consumer GA) Early commercial / experimental (verify) GA launches, transaction data
Fully autonomous agent payments Experimental / speculative (verify) Liability frameworks, standards
Stablecoin B2B cross-border settlement Early commercial (verify) Adjusted payment volumes
Stablecoins for everyday retail payments (U.S./EU) Experimental (verify) Merchant and consumer usage data
Tokenized deposits Early commercial (wholesale) (verify) Live transaction data
Tokenized MMFs as collateral Early commercial (verify) AUM, collateral acceptance
Retail CBDCs in advanced economies Speculative / experimental (verify) Legislation, issuance decisions
Passkeys replacing SMS at banks Early commercial (verify) Deployment counts
Quantum-safe cryptography in payments Experimental (verify) Migration roadmaps

9. Workflows

Use the master workflow format for:

  • Evaluating an AI-powered financial app's claims (questions to ask; where to check)
  • Setting safe limits and permissions for AI shopping agents (conceptual guidance, based on documented product controls)
  • Understanding what protections apply if you hold or receive a stablecoin (vs. bank deposit)
  • A business evaluating stablecoin payouts or acceptance (licensing, accounting, tax-reporting questions for professionals; custody; off-ramp costs)
  • A developer integrating an agentic checkout protocol in sandbox (security and consent considerations)
  • A compliance team building an AI model inventory and validation process

10. Timeline 2020–2026

  • OCC crypto letters (2020–2021) and reversals; Terra collapse (2022); USDC depeg (2023)
  • MiCA milestones; Hong Kong Stablecoins Ordinance; GENIUS Act and implementing rules
  • Stripe–Bridge and other stablecoin infrastructure deals; Circle IPO (June 2025 — verify)
  • Generative AI arrives in finance (2023); major bank deployments
  • EU AI Act milestones; U.S. state AI laws; federal preemption efforts
  • Agentic commerce announcements (2025) and first GA launches (verify)
  • Tokenized MMF growth; tokenized equities for retail
  • CBDC decisions: U.S. EO, digital euro legislation, digital pound decision, Canada shelving