09-09-2026 
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The good, the bad, and the ugly of digital wallets were on full display this week, as several recently published reports highlighted the technology’s utility and increasing consumer adoption for travel and cross-border payments, but also by scammers and money launderers for less savory purposes.
- Digital wallets reshape travel as AI adoption grows
- HKMA warns of scams targeting mobile card binding
- FATF flags digital wallets in underground money laundering
Consumers rely on digital wallets for travel; AI adoption accelerates
Digital wallets, artificial intelligence (AI), and interoperability are now foundational to how consumers travel and transact across borders, according to a new study by Alipay+—the unified wallet gateway of Ant International—in partnership with financial intelligence giant S&P Global (NASDAQ: SPGI).
The study—which surveyed 6,000 consumers across nine markets in Asia, Europe, and the United States on their cross-border spending habits—pointed to a major shift underway in global commerce, where consumers increasingly expect mobile wallets to evolve beyond payments into integrated platforms for travel, rewards, commerce, and AI-powered services.
“The world has already become mobile-first and borderless, and the challenge now is whether commerce infrastructure can evolve quickly enough to keep pace with consumer expectations,” Ant International President Douglas Feagin said. “The next phase of global commerce will not be defined by whether payments are digital, but whether ecosystems are intelligent, interoperable and globally connected.”
Published September 2, the report highlighted what it described as a growing “commerce digitalization gap,” with people demanding seamless mobile payments and intelligent digital assistance, but their experience being defined by friction—from inconsistent payment acceptance to trust in AI.
In terms of the latter factor, a key finding was that AI adoption is accelerating across discovery and planning, but 43% of surveyed consumers expressed privacy concerns, suggesting that trust needs to be strengthened to sustain the scaling of AI-enabled commerce.
“AI adoption is accelerating rapidly, with 81.3% of consumers already using AI-powered tools to explore destinations and experiences,” read the report. “However, adoption becomes more selective as AI moves from exploration to action. While 73.2% of consumers are open to using AI for hotel or flight bookings over the next 12 months, confidence declines as AI moves closer to payments and autonomous decision-making, with only 26% of consumers stating interest in doing so.”
Despite this, openness towards AI-enabled commerce remains strong, particularly in markets such as China, Malaysia, and Thailand. When asked about using an AI travel assistant during their trip, 87.7% of global consumers said they valued AI-supported bookings and rebookings, 86.9% valued AI-assisted payments and refunds, and 84.6% valued real-time travel guidance and support.
“The opportunity lies in embedding AI securely within trusted ecosystems, allowing consumers to act on intent more seamlessly while retaining trust and user control across the commerce journey,” Feagin said.
Beyond AI, consumers are also demanding increased interoperability from their digital wallets. Based on consumer feedback, mobile payments are now the preferred method for everyday in-destination spending on food, shopping, and local attractions, while cards dominate pre-trip bookings, particularly in Germany and the U.S.
However, more than half (53%) of consumers continue to cite uncertainty about merchant acceptance or a lack of access to preferred payment methods (54%), with one in four still carrying cash as a fallback—a divergence that Alipay claims is “creating growing friction across the travel journey.”
Of the other key findings, the study also revealed that consumers want payment apps to do more: the most in-demand in-app service globally is reservations, with 61% of respondents demanding it, while 58% wanted all-in-one booking, and 57% wanted attraction access.
Again, this was most pronounced in China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, where demand for integrated experiences within a single app was strongest, in contrast to those in Japan and Germany, where security, transparency, and predictable payment experiences were prioritized.
Unfortunately, as digital wallets and payments grow in popularity among consumers, the area has naturally become an increasingly attractive target for criminals and fraudsters.
HKMA warns of phishing scams targeting binding of payment cards
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the top financial watchdog and central banking institution of Hong Kong, has warned the public to stay alert to phishing scams targeting the binding of payment cards to contactless mobile payment services, while reminding banks to remain vigilant and strengthen customer education.
On September 4, the HKMA revealed that it had received reports from banks of scams involving the unauthorized binding of payment cards, including ATM cards, to contactless mobile payment services.
According to the regulator, the fraudsters impersonate merchants or other organizations through phishing messages, fraudulent websites, or phone calls, and use various pretexts, such as offering compensation for goods, to deceive victims into disclosing their payment card information and ATM personal identification numbers (PINs).
To bind the victims’ payment cards to devices under their control, fraudsters then coax the victims into approving payment card-binding requests via channels such as mobile banking applications or two-way SMS messages. Once the payment cards are bound, fraudsters can use them to make unauthorized transactions.
According to a recent report from cybersecurity firm StationX, 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent every day, making phishing the single largest-volume attack vector. Meanwhile, the U.S.-based Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) tracked 3.8 million phishing attacks across 2025, with Q2 2025 alone recording 1,130,393 attacks.
Meanwhile, U.S. cybersecurity company SentinelOne recently estimated that phishing accounts for 42% of all global breaches, 35% of which use smishing (SMS) and messaging apps, with mobile users three times more likely than desktop users to click on malicious links. These phishing attacks lead to global losses of $25 billion annually.
To avoid becoming part of these statistics, the HKMA reminded members of the public that binding a payment card is a high-risk operation, and suggested a few pieces of advice to keep in mind.
Specifically, never click hyperlinks in messages from unknown sources; never disclose payment card information, ATM PINs, login passwords, or one-time passwords (OTP); never follow instructions from unknown or unverified persons to respond to or approve any requests or transactions; and carefully read all messages and notifications from banks, rejecting any card-binding request that they have not initiated.
While the Hong Kong watchdog’s recent update focused on informing potential victims, national and international authorities are also continuing to shine a spotlight on the perpetrators and those who facilitate them, including underground banking networks.
FATF finds underground banking and hawala using digital wallets to aid in money laundering
A new report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—a global financial crime watchdog and anti-money laundering/counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF) standard setter—highlighted the growing role of underground banking, hawala, and other similar service providers (HOSSPs) in facilitating illicit finance.
Hawala is an informal, trust-based method of transferring money outside traditional banking systems, in which cash is paid to an agent in one location, and a counterpart agent pays the equivalent amount to the recipient in another location.
While HOSSPs can serve legitimate purposes, in most countries, they are lawful only where they are fully registered, and the provision of underground banking or unregistered HOSSP services is usually a criminal offense, not to mention being in contravention of FATF Standards, which recommend that countries require these entities to be licensed or registered to provide such services.
The FATF report, published on September 3, emphasized the vulnerability of these systems to money laundering and terrorist financing, with some cases involving more than EUR 500 million ($580.69 million) laundered through such schemes within just a few months, often aided by virtual assets and AI-based tools.
Drawing on evidence from more than 50 jurisdictions, the report found that criminal misuse of underground banking and HOSSPs is a widespread global phenomenon, with more than 80% of reporting jurisdictions identifying them as principal professional money-laundering channels or techniques.
The misuse of these networks and systems is further exacerbated by the integration of new technologies, with 70% of respondents identifying this integration and a growing shift towards so-called “digital hawala.”
This includes operators using encrypted messaging applications, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, to coordinate; customers initiating transfers through bank transfers, mobile wallets, fintech applications, or instant payment systems; operators using virtual assets, including stablecoins, to settle balances between themselves; the use of AI-based tools; and even the development of purpose-built ‘Hawala apps.’
“All of these developments can accelerate the efficiency of professional money laundering services, make money easier to hide, and strengthen the geographic reach and resilience of underground banking- and HOSSP-based professional money laundering schemes,” read the report. “Criminals are using these systems to launder proceeds from a broader spectrum of criminal economies including fraud, cyber-enabled crime, terrorist financing, illegal gaming and gambling and transnational organised crime.”
In terms of recommendations, the FATF said that the findings highlight the importance of combining targeted prevention and enforcement measures with proportionate financial inclusion efforts, supported by legal clarity, enhanced detection capabilities, public-private feedback loops, and domestic and international coordination.
“This emergence of sophisticated, commercially operated cross-border money laundering networks is a serious risk multiplier, making it easier for criminals to cover up their activities that harm people and communities around the world,” Giles Thomson, FATF President, said. “Whether through dedicated coordination channels or innovative investigative tools, I urge public and private partners around the world to put the good practices identified in this report into action to detect and disrupt this infrastructure that is sustaining organised crime.”
The FATF has recently increased its focus on money laundering facilitated by new technologies, particularly digital assets.
In March, the watchdog warned of illicit finance risks linked to stablecoins, particularly through peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions via unhosted wallets, urging countries “to recognise the specific money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing risks associated with stablecoins and to implement proportionate and effective mitigating measures that reflect their distinct characteristics.”
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