July 2025
In a data-driven era, enabling interoperability, safeguarding privacy, and harmonising regulation are no longer aspirations; they are imperatives. The roundtable at GFTN Forum, Japan 2025 convened leaders from across public and private sectors to address persistent frictions in the payments ecosystem and illuminate how three critical themes, namely open data frameworks, standards harmonisation and privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), can create more inclusive and efficient financial systems.
This roundtable built directly on the highlighted actions and insights from the March 2025 report, “The New World of Data”, published by GFTN and EPAA. That earlier report called for deeper examination of four priorities: elevating MSME voices in policy, addressing regulatory mismatches, promoting API-driven interoperability, and raising awareness of PETs. These themes provided the scaffolding for this follow-up session, which focused on implementation pathways and cross-sector collaboration to close those identified gaps.
Key themes emerged around the barriers MSMEs face in accessing cross-border financial services, the urgent need for standards alignment, and the role of emerging technologies, including decentralised data protocols and PETs, in fostering both innovation and trust The session concluded with a call for more industry-led education, public-private collaboration, and testable real-world pilot initiatives to demonstrate the viability of these innovations at scale.
