2025 Rewind: Lessons, Leaders & the Road to 2026
The Issuer Academy: Innovate. Scale. Impact · 2025-12-18 · 42 min
Episode notes
In this special year-end episode of The Issuer Academy podcast, host Merusha Naidu looks back at the standout moments that defined 2025 for issuers, digital banks, and fintechs. From bold predictions on the end of plastic cards to the rise of agentic AI, this best-of compilation brings together the sharpest insights from leaders at Mastercard, Visa, Paymentology, Apis Partners, Snappi, and more. What You’ll Learn: Why card payments are more omnipresent than ever How AI will democratize finance for the underserved The SME market is massively underserved Why hyper-personalization wins where loyalty programs fail Open finance and digital identity as the next frontiers for inclusion If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode, and don’t forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify - we appreciate all feedback from our listeners!