Three shifts reshaping enterprise payments | Insights from Citi

Enterprise payments rarely transform through a single innovation. They shift when economics, risk, treasury, and performance begin colliding in ways the traditional stack was never designed to handle.

In a recent episode of Payments Unfiltered, I sat down with Will Artingstall, Global Head of Digital Asset Payments and e-commerce Services at Citi, to unpack how that shift is playing out at the largest institutions in the ecosystem. 

We spoke about direct acquiring, issuer visibility, stablecoins, and what happens when payments become embedded inside products rather than managed as a standalone function.

Here are three takeaways: 

Shift #1: From payment stack to payment system

For years, enterprise payments have been built as a stack: gateways, processors, acquirers, banks. Each layer was optimized separately. 

That separation becomes costly when volumes are high and margins are thin. Small movements in authorization rates or settlement timing can materially change overall performance. It is one reason some enterprise merchants are reducing abstraction and moving closer to acquirers like Citi.

As Will explained, “The merchant is my client. The cardholder is my client. I know both people.”

When the same institution operates on both the acquiring and issuing side, additional optimization becomes possible through deeper visibility into authorization behavior and risk tolerance.

Shift #2: New rails require orchestration, not replacement

Stablecoins and tokenized deposits are often framed as replacements for existing payment rails. In practice, large institutions are approaching them as additions.

As Will outlined, most large organizations are still in an exploratory phase. The limiting factors are not speed or technology, but treasury readiness, accounting processes, regulatory clarity, and operational realities.

Rather than replacing traditional rails, organizations are expanding their toolkit. Real-time clearing, tokenized deposits, and stablecoins are beginning to sit alongside existing infrastructure. Citi’s recent collaboration with Coinbase reflects that approach, focusing on interoperability and fiat pay-ins and payouts instead of positioning one rail as the future.

Enterprise teams don’t struggle with access to new rails. They struggle with integrating them without compromising visibility or control.

Shift #3: Payments built with the client, not for the client

As payments embed deeper into product experiences, they stop being a back-office function.

Will captured it clearly when he said, “Many clients are procuring payments in order to embed in their own processes.”

That changes how infrastructure gets built.

Payments are no longer a standalone capability that sits alongside the product. They are inside the product. They trigger payouts, update ledgers, power reporting, and shape customer experience in real time. You can’t design that in isolation. 

Infrastructure has to be designed around real workflows, and designing those flows without close collaboration almost always leads to misalignment.

That’s why Citi leans into “co-creation.” Not custom builds for a single client, but shared problem framing across business, product, and engineering. 

When payments power the product itself, understanding the flow end to end is no longer optional. It becomes table stakes for scale.

A new approach to enterprise payments

Enterprise payments are changing. As new rails emerge and payment flows become more complex, organizations are rethinking how their infrastructure is designed and managed.

Those that adapt will be better positioned to move faster, operate more efficiently, and support the next phase of growth.