24/7 Payments Move to the Center of Global Finance and AI

The next phase of payments may not be about making transactions a few seconds faster.

It may be about making the financial system work continuously.

That was one of the clearest themes emerging from the 2026 Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, where policymakers and economists examined financial innovation, payment systems, tokenization and the future of banking. The discussion arrived as the G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill put artificial intelligence, robotics, and digital technology at the center of a broader debate about economic growth.

Together, the two events point toward the same structural shift: digital commerce is becoming increasingly global and continuous, while financial infrastructure still operates across fragmented systems, currencies, and settlement windows.

The challenge now is connecting those worlds.

24/7 Payments Expose the Cross-Border Problem

Domestic payments have improved dramatically in many markets.

Instant-payment systems can move money within seconds. Consumers increasingly expect payments to be available at any hour. Businesses, meanwhile, can sell software, digital services, and other products globally without waiting for physical supply chains to move.

Cross-border payments are different.

At Jackson Hole, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva argued that international transactions remain too costly and too slow compared with the progress made in domestic payment systems.

That gap matters because international commerce is becoming increasingly digital.

A software company can onboard a customer on the other side of the world almost instantly. A freelancer can deliver a service across borders without shipping anything. A cloud platform can serve customers in dozens of countries from the same infrastructure.

Yet the money supporting those transactions can still encounter correspondent banks, currency conversion, compliance checks, and different payment systems.

In other words, the product can cross the border faster than the payment.

That creates an infrastructure problem rather than simply a consumer-experience problem.

The Next Payment Race Is Cross-Border

The direction of travel is already visible.

Payment systems are increasingly being linked rather than rebuilt independently in every country. Regional initiatives such as Nexus, along with domestic instant-payment systems and cross-border connectivity projects, are attempting to connect faster domestic rails.

The idea is straightforward.

If every country builds a fast payment system but those systems cannot communicate efficiently, global payments remain fragmented.

That is why interoperability could become as important as speed.

For banks, fintechs, and payment providers, the opportunity is significant. A truly connected payment environment could reduce friction for international commerce, improve cash-flow visibility, and make smaller cross-border transactions more viable.

However, speed alone will not solve the problem.

Businesses also care about foreign-exchange transparency, reliability, compliance, dispute management and the ability to operate across multiple markets.

The winning payment infrastructure will therefore need to combine speed with trust.

Tokenization Creates a Different 24/7 Challenge

Tokenization takes the discussion one step further.

A tokenized asset can potentially trade continuously on programmable infrastructure. That creates a natural mismatch with traditional settlement systems that were designed around banking hours, batch processes and established large-value payment windows.

Darrell Duffie, the Stanford economist who presented research on tokenized finance at Jackson Hole, focused on precisely this problem.

The market for tokenized U.S. Treasuries remains small compared with the traditional Treasury market. But if tokenized markets grow substantially, the financial system will need a reliable form of cash settlement that can operate alongside them.

That raises an important question:

What happens when the asset trades 24/7 but the safest form of settlement money does not?

Traditional financial markets ultimately rely heavily on central bank money for final settlement. Yet central-bank deposits are not generally available today as programmable, 24/7 settlement assets across tokenized markets.

That creates a potential bottleneck.

A tokenized Treasury can move continuously. A tokenized fund can change hands around the clock. A programmable financial contract can execute automatically.

But the settlement layer still needs liquidity.

Central-Bank Money Becomes Part of the Tokenization Debate

This is where the tokenization conversation becomes more serious.

The debate is no longer simply about whether assets should move onto blockchains or other programmable ledgers.

It is increasingly about what money settles those assets.

Stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits may play important roles in digital payments. However, Duffie’s analysis raises concerns about relying on them as the ultimate settlement asset for very large financial markets.

For multi-trillion-dollar markets such as government securities financing and clearinghouse payments, the question of safe settlement becomes much harder.

One possible model would allow banks to move central-bank deposits across programmable 24/7 infrastructure.

Another could connect existing large-value payment systems with tokenized platforms so that the asset and settlement money move together.

Neither approach is simple.

Banks would also need to consider liquidity. If institutions must maintain separate settlement balances across conventional and tokenized venues, fragmentation could increase funding costs.

That means tokenization could eventually force financial institutions to rethink liquidity management itself.

AI Could Increase the Pressure on Payment Infrastructure

This is where the G20 discussion about AI becomes relevant.

Artificial intelligence can be distributed globally at extraordinary speed.

A software model does not need a factory in every country. A digital service can reach customers almost immediately. AI-powered companies can therefore expand internationally without following the same physical distribution model as traditional businesses.

Elon Musk used the G20 Innovation Ministerial to make a broader argument about the difference between digital and physical technologies. He suggested that software can scale much faster than physical systems because physical technology still depends on manufacturing, supply chains, chips, factories and energy infrastructure.

His forecasts about AI and humanoid robots are his own projections rather than official G20 estimates.

The broader point, however, is relevant to financial infrastructure.

If AI accelerates the international delivery of digital services, cross-border payment volumes could rise alongside it.

That would put more pressure on the systems moving money between countries.

AI may make it easier for a company in one market to sell to customers around the world. But unless payments become equally scalable, the financial system could become the bottleneck.

24/7 Payments Need More Than Faster Rails

There is a temptation to frame the future of payments as a race for speed.

That is too narrow.

The real challenge is coordination.

A 24/7 financial system needs payment rails that can communicate continuously. It needs liquidity that can move across venues. It needs reliable identity and compliance infrastructure. It needs settlement assets that financial institutions trust. And it needs rules that work across jurisdictions.

That makes interoperability one of the most important themes in financial infrastructure.

The next generation of payment networks may therefore look less like isolated domestic systems and more like connected global infrastructure.

For fintech companies, this could create opportunities around orchestration, foreign exchange, compliance, treasury management and payment routing.

For banks, it could require deeper investment in APIs, real-time liquidity, and programmable settlement.

For central banks, the question becomes even more fundamental: how should public settlement infrastructure evolve when financial markets increasingly operate continuously?

The Bigger Shift: Finance Is Moving Toward Continuous Infrastructure

Jackson Hole and the G20 were discussing different parts of the technology landscape.

One focused heavily on financial innovation, payments, tokenization, and monetary infrastructure. The other examined AI, robotics and the broader technology-driven economy.

Yet the connection is clear.

The digital economy does not operate in banking hours.

Payments, markets and digital services are increasingly expected to operate continuously.

That creates pressure on the financial system to move from periodic settlement toward always-on infrastructure.

However, continuous finance will not happen simply because blockchain networks, instant payments or AI become more capable.

The supporting architecture has to evolve too.

That means central-bank settlement, bank liquidity, cross-border connectivity, compliance and financial regulation all become part of the same conversation.

The real opportunity is not simply to make money move faster.

It is to make financial infrastructure work at the speed of the digital economy.

What This Means for Fintech

For fintech companies, the opportunity could be substantial.

Cross-border payments remain fragmented. Tokenized finance is still developing. AI is increasing the amount of digital economic activity that can happen across borders.

Those three trends could eventually reinforce each other.

An AI-powered business may sell services globally. A payment provider may route the transaction through connected instant-payment networks. A tokenized asset could provide liquidity or collateral on programmable infrastructure. Settlement could eventually happen continuously rather than waiting for conventional banking windows.

That future is not here yet.

But the direction is becoming clearer.

The next payment revolution may not be about another faster consumer checkout.

It may be about rebuilding the financial plumbing underneath a global economy that never really closes.

And the question for banks, fintechs and policymakers is no longer whether payments should become faster.

It is whether the entire financial system is ready to become 24/7.

Jackson Hole and G20 Map a Future of 24/7 Payments and AI

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