As real-time payments become the standard, Paymentwall CEO, Honor Gunday, argues that coverage is now a commodity – the real battle is no longer about getting connected, but having the local depth to handle the messiness of risk at scale.
WHAT IT REALLY TAKES TO RUN LOCAL PAYMENTS AT SCALE
As real-time banking rails become the dominant transaction method across global markets – from Pix in Brazil to Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in India – the global payments industry is facing a reality check.
For the past decade, the strategy for cross-border merchants was simple – add as many payment logos as possible to the checkout page via a single application programming interface (API).
That strategy largely worked because payment coverage itself was the bottleneck, and connecting to local payment methods was difficult, fragmented, and slow.
Today, that constraint has shifted. As local payment methods mature and scale, coverage is no longer the primary challenge.
Merchants can reach more markets, users, and transaction volume than ever before.
What has become harder is operating those payment methods effectively within each local context.
THE HIDDEN COMPLEXITY: WHEN ‘VALID’ TRANSACTIONS ARE NOT
As real-time, irrevocable local payment rails move into the mainstream, they expose operational and risk challenges that only surface at scale.
In these environments, technical connectivity is only half the battle; the other half is understanding the context behind the transaction.
Whilst transactions may be technically ‘valid,’ risk patterns vary significantly by market. As Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) research highlights, in regions where agent-led transactions or shared accounts are the norm, standard fraud filters often fail to distinguish between common local habits and actual threats.
The challenge has shifted from stolen cards to more complex vectors – account takeovers (ATO), social engineering, and the systematic abuse of localised incentives.
Without visibility into local behaviour across users, devices, and time, coordinated abuse becomes harder to detect.
Offering 200+ payment options is no longer the competitive hurdle; the real challenge is managing the local rules, operational edge cases, and risk patterns that emerge once those options reach real volume.
THE BRIDGE PHILOSOPHY
This complexity proves that the definition of alternative payment methods has changed, which is no longer just about offering a menu of payment options but about managing the localised ecosystems that govern them.
This is a pattern Paymentwall has observed firsthand while operating local payment methods across multiple markets, as these systems reach real scale.
Payment coverage alone is becoming a commodity, and the days when local payments were considered exotic add-ons are gone; today, they are the standard.
But simply aggregating hundreds of logos into an API is no longer a strategy. To truly act as a bridge between a global merchant and a local market, you need legs on both sides. You cannot just provide the code; you have to provide the local market understanding.
For the next generation of global commerce, success will likely be defined less by the breadth of payment options and more by the depth of the local footprint used to manage them.
JOINING THE CONVERSATION: PAYMENTWALL AT MRC 2026
Paymentwall will head to the Merchant Risk Conference (MRC) 2026 to engage with industry leaders on how the rapid growth of local rails is reshaping global risk management.
The team will share insights on why international expansion now requires deep-market operational muscle rather than global shortcuts.
Founded in 2010, Paymentwall is headquartered in San Francisco and operates as a global payments platform that enables over 500,000 merchants to accept and manage 200+ payment methods in 190+ countries.
With 20+ offices strategically located across the globe, Paymentwall provides the direct local market understanding and compliance infrastructure necessary to turn technical connectivity into a scalable, real-world operational success.
