Monoup news digest: main updates from fintech industry

Today is the final Friday of this year, and we’ve decided to reflect not on the top news of this week, but on the events of the entire year 2025 that shaped it. These events defined 2025 as an active, impactful year that significantly influenced innovation in the payment industry and moved us forward.

Payment systems, banks, tech companies, and merchants collectively shaped the market, setting ambitious new goals for themselves. Today, we’ll revisit the most important news of this year, discuss its potential, and summarize the key takeaways.

Let’s begin!

Mastercard and Cards Without 16-Digit Numbers

Back in February 2025, Mastercard announced its intention to eliminate card numbers as unnecessary details that compromise payment security.

The British corporate card provider Tide immediately switched to issuing Mastercard’s new format — completely blank plastic cards without a number, expiration date, or CVV. All information is only accessible in the online app.

Mastercard plans for its entire card portfolio to be issued this way by 2030, as it will prevent situations where stolen plastic or the data on it is used for payments. If a card has no data, it can’t be used for payments, even if lost. In parallel, Mastercard is preparing to replace 3DS codes with biometrics, which should improve conversion rates and reduce the share of fraudulent transactions.

In the near future, we can expect a completely different payment process, which both merchants and payment systems will need to adapt to. Currently, payment conversion is achieved through confident management of existing functionality, but if that changes, we’ll have to follow the trends.

U.S. Phases Out Paper Checks

In April 2025, President Trump signed an executive order mandating that all government payments switch to electronic methods — direct bank transfers, cards, or e-wallets. This includes taxes, payouts, and inter-agency settlements. It turned out that checks were regularly lost or returned, and in 2024, over $657 million was spent on printing and maintaining check infrastructure. The problem was only noticed now, despite alternatives existing for decades.

There are literally jokes about the U.S. and checks, but the country somehow failed to notice this optimization opportunity right here all this time.

China Launches CIPS 2.0 as an Alternative to SWIFT

The new international payment system from China, Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), based on the digital yuan, is already operational in 16 countries across Asia and the Middle East.

The first transaction of $17 million for auto parts from Shenzhen to Kuala Lumpur was completed in 7.2 seconds — a phenomenal result compared to the usual SWIFT. The system promises instant settlements and functionality even without internet access. The key difference from SWIFT is that CIPS can independently process payments and conduct settlements, whereas SWIFT only transmits messages between banks (which then handle the payments themselves). This highlights a fundamental difference in approaches: SWIFT is a communication tool, while CIPS is a payment system.

Financial experts predict that part of the world will switch to CIPS and move away from dollar-based settlements, which is quite possible. Most likely, these will be countries in Asia and the Middle East that depend on slow dollar-based transfers and have strong trade ties with China.

Apple Allows Third-Party Payment Systems in Apps

May brought news that an antitrust court ordered Apple to allow developers to use alternative payment solutions, external links, and calls to action for payments outside the App Store. Previously, Apple had a complete monopoly on all payments and charged significant fees. These "levies" heavily impacted app profits, and although most developers were dissatisfied, they had no alternatives.

Additionally, the court prohibited Apple from charging fees on purchases made outside the app to ensure equal opportunities for internal and external payment systems. Apple agreed to comply with the decision but will file an appeal, the results of which we’ll learn about soon.

The monopoly on in-app payments via Apple Pay had held for years, but the Epic Games lawsuit and developer pressure broke the system. Whether this result can be maintained remains unclear, but it’s already a significant achievement.

iDEAL Will No Longer Exist

In October 2025, we learned that the Dutch payment method iDEAL will be integrated into the WERO infrastructure starting in 2026 and will cease to function separately. iDEAL has existed since 2005 and covers nearly 100% of the Dutch population.

The transition will begin with a rebrand to "iDEAL | Wero" for smooth user adaptation, and after a year, the co-branding will disappear, with iDEAL fully becoming WERO in all banking apps. A similar scheme is expected for other local methods — this is how Europe is forming a unified space for P2P payments.

SWIFT Abandons MT Format in Favor of ISO 20022

On November 22, SWIFT officially discontinued support for MT (Message Type) — the communication format between banks that had been the industry standard for decades.

Instead, the system switched to ISO 20022, which already supports stablecoins and blockchain solutions. MT required a strict set of alphanumeric codes to transmit payment data — it was the universal language of banks worldwide, which was its main convenience. Everyone writes in a standardized way, so they understand each other without needing to decode anything. But the current financial system requires different solutions: ISO 20022 is more flexible, allowing for customizable fields, non-standard information, and processing different types of assets, including cryptocurrencies.

This transition is now critical for SWIFT — without adapting to the crypto industry, the system risked becoming obsolete and losing relevance against new players like CIPS. Although this feels like the end of an era, such a measure is necessary for the industry’s development and transformation.

Summing Up the Year

In conclusion, this year will undoubtedly go down in payment history as transformative. Many things that seemed like pillars of the industry have changed: new rules for SWIFT, no more checks in the U.S., plastic cards in a completely new format — and we didn't even touch on the news related to AI and its development. By the way, you can always read about these developments in our channel using the search function.

For fintechs, one truth has become clear: if you don’t change yourself, regulators, competitors, or technologies will change you.