Payment rails get rebuilt on three fronts at once

Brazil tightens the rules

Brazil's National Monetary Council and central bank approved a package of improvements to open-finance partnership rules. The changes require specific client consent for each partner entity, strengthen participating institutions' monitoring duties over their partners, and create mechanisms to interrupt data sharing when security risks arise. Boards of directors and executive officers get explicit responsibility for monitoring, compliance and preventive measures. m:…5585

The stated aims are prosaic — clarity on the regime's scope, fewer interpretive differences among participants, stronger security, privacy and governance of shared data — and the package opens the door to consent journeys where access can happen at different times and by different users, built for legal entities whose internal approvals don't look like a consumer's. m:…5585

The resolution also adds restrictions against the improper use of shared information, and the CMN and central bank frame the whole package as a bid to stimulate innovation and strengthen user trust. The initiative is explicitly pitched as a convenience play for legal entities — consent journeys designed so a company's internal approvals can happen at different times, by different people, instead of being squeezed into a consumer-shaped flow. m:…5585

Two central banks link their rails

The central banks of the UAE and Morocco signed two memoranda of understanding covering supervisory cooperation and — the one bankers will watch — interlinking their payment systems. The announcement gives no implementation timelines, so this is intent, not plumbing; but cross-border interlinking is the slow, official counterpart to the private-sector networks being built elsewhere. The MoUs also include provisions for cooperation on Islamic finance. m:…4537

Britain's bank-transfer rails get a progress report

In the UK, the commercial variable recurring payments scheme run by UKPI went live in June 2026 for Wave 1 industries — utilities, financial services, government, charities and rail. GoCardless, one of the scheme's early participants, is hosting a webinar on November 25 to review early adoption signals and discuss what has worked and what hasn't during the initial rollout. The open question it poses: whether commercial VRP can ever displace card payments. m:…7401

The cost of the old rails

A data point from Razorpay's analysis of Indian e-commerce shows what the rebuild is up against: 60% of the country's online transactions still run on cash-on-delivery, and 26% of those orders come back. Each returned COD order costs a brand about Rs 561, refunds typically take five to seven days, and customers who get instant refunds repurchase at a 23% higher rate within 30 days. COD returns reached 58% during the festive quarter, and return-to-origin rates represent 20% to 40% of total COD orders. m:…3409

This suggests three different rebuilds with one diagnosis: the frictions are in governance, borders and settlement speed. Brazil is writing the rulebook for data sharing, the Gulf is wiring corridors together, Britain is testing whether bank transfers can take share from cards — and India's COD numbers are a reminder of the tax the old rails still levy. m:…5585 m:…4537 m:…7401

The detail is ugly across segments. Fashion return rates run 25 to 35%, return-to-origin rates sit at 20 to 40% of all COD orders, and festive-quarter COD returns reached 58%. COD transactions also create complex GST reconciliation issues for D2C brands. m:…3409