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As Shannon taught us, effective communication is not just about capacity-it's about encoding information to suit the channel. By leveraging multimodal interaction, predictive AI, and hybrid approaches to interface design, we can create intelligent systems that amplify human capabilities. As such, it's likely that the next era of human-computer interaction will not be about replacing GUIs with conversational interfaces, but harmonising the two into systems that are greater than the sum of their parts.

A paper by a couple of Barclays staffers aims to provide a mitigation to the risk that the adoption of central bank digital currency (CBDC) fragments payments markets and retail deposits. It introduces the concept of ecosystems providing a common programmability layer that interfaces with the account systems at both commercial banks and the central bank. The paper focuses on a potential U.K. CBDC, including industry ecosystems interfacing with commercial banks using open banking application programming interfaces (APIs).

The Bank of Canada (BoC) published a paper how digital payments can be made more cognitively accessible, focusing on removing cognitive barriers present in many digital interfaces and products. It proposes an inclusive approach since involving people with cognitive disabilities in design, testing, and refinement is crucial. The proposed framework centers on system learnability and user workload as the two key measures of cognitive accessibility in digital payment and banking interfaces. A prototype interface is developed and tested for voice payments, which successfully demonstrates that the framework provides an effective iterative design approach to enhance cognitive accessibility and usability.

The European Central Bank (ECB) will collaborate with five companies to develop potential user interfaces for the digital euro. The aim of this prototyping exercise is to test how well the technology behind a digital euro integrates with prototypes developed by companies. Simulated transactions will be initiated using the front-end prototypes developed by the five companies and processed through the Eurosystem's interface and back-end infrastructure. The selected companies will each focus on one specific use case of a digital euro; peer-to-peer online payments (CaixaBank), peer-to-peer offline payments (Worldline), point of sale payments initiated by the payer (EPI), point of sale payments initiated by the payee (Nexi) and e-commerce payments (Amazon).

Unified Payment Interface (#UPI) is the fastest growing payment system in the world. National Payments Corporation Of India (NPCI) created a masterpiece - UPI, an interface via which you can transfer money between bank accounts across a single window. It's a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile app. This means you can send or receive money or scan a #QRcode to pay an individual, a merchant or a service provider to shop, pay bills or authorize payments.

The BIS Innovation Hub London Centre has launched the Project Rosalind TechSprint, inviting expressions of interest to come up with retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) use cases. Participants will be required to develop feasible prototypes by using the set of application programming interfaces (APIs) developed in phase one of Project Rosalind. It aims to develop prototypes of an API platform for the distribution of retail CBDC. The purely experimental setup is based on a two-tier distribution model, comprising a central bank at the foundation of the retail CBDC system and with customer-facing activities carried out by the private sector payment interface providers (PIPs).

The BIS Innovation Hub London Centre invites companies and organizations to submit expressions of interest to join the Project Rosalind to develop application programming interface (API) prototypes for distributing CBDCs. The group will be structured into two tiers - API users and technical advisors, with different roles and responsibilities for each. The project, run jointly with the Bank of England, aims to address some of the questions around developing a retail CBDC system, including: how to improve public-private sector collaboration? How to maximize interoperability, encourage competition and enable adoption? How might retail CBDC meet current and future consumer needs in a fast-changing payments landscape? The objective is to explore how this interface could best enable a central bank ledger to interact with private sector service providers to safely provision retail payments.

Société Universitaire Européenne de Recherches Financières (SUERF) published a note that draws lessons from the success of India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI). It argues that this success majorly owes to ease of development of applications, easy use and zero-transaction fees for end-users. Further success factors have been strict data protection rules, active partnership with the private sector and adept regulation. The note also discusses the organization of the Indian payment market since the launch of UPI, and the changes in digital payment market in India, with a focus on payment volumes and values. It highlights the increasing investments in the payments market and increased adoption over time, and provides insights into the implications of payment systems for financial inclusion in India, and touches upon some challenges UPI faces.

The RBI is set to launch the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) that will provide lenders digital access to customer's financial and non-financial data -- including land records -- stored in various silos to help them extend frictionless credit, especially to farmers and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This cuts down the time taken for credit appraisal, especially for smaller and rural borrowers. The ULI architecture has common and standardized APIs, designed for a 'plug and play' approach to ensure digital access to information from diverse sources. This reduces the complexity of multiple technical integrations. https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_SpeechesView.aspx?Id=1456

The Bank of England (BOE) published a summary of its work during 2024 on a digital pound, including how it relates to the evolving payments landscape. It also published an initial design note as part of its work on a blueprint for the central bank digital currency (CBDC). The blueprint is one of four workstreams in the digital pound design phase (see below). Its purpose is to provide a comprehensive proposition for a digital pound, including technology, operational, ecosystem, commercial, regulatory and financial considerations, and the roles that both the Bank and the private sector could play in delivering it. The Bank also will launch a Digital Pound Lab to enable hands-on experimentation to test API functionality, innovative use cases and potential business models for payment interface providers (PIPs) and external service interface providers (ESIPs). https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/report/2025/blueprint-framework-design-note

The Bank of England (BOE) is now accepting applications to conduct hands-on experimentation to explore the feasibility of different digital pound (DP) use cases in a simulated environment (no real customers or real money payments will be involved). Its goals include assessing the viability of potential business models for payment interface providers (PIPs) and external service Interface providers (ESIPs), and assessing the requirements necessary for a DP to provide a platform for innovation. The Lab is expected to run from August 2025 to July 2026, during which there will be two phases (see below). Applications are open to all private and public sector companies and organisations from technology, payments, banking, retail and other relevant sectors.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision today published its Report on open banking and application programming interfaces (APIs). The report monitors the evolving trend of open banking observed in Basel Committee member jurisdictions and the use of APIs.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched a call for expression of interest for payment service providers, banks and technology companies to join an exercise to develop prototype user interfaces for a digital euro. The ECB specifies 28 separate possible use cases, covering all aspects of the design process, from QR codes to user authentication, electronic ID (EID) and know-your-customer (KYC), among others.

The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) published a report that provides a framework to help payment system operators and authorities understand and evaluate the benefits, challenges and risks of interlinking arrangements. It also provides an overview of important trends in interlinking arrangements and adoption of application programming interfaces (APIs) by payment systems. Interlinking arrangements allow banks and other payment service providers to transact with each other without requiring them to participate in the same payment system or use intermediaries. Such arrangements can shorten transaction chains, reduce overall costs and increase the transparency and speed of payments.

The Bank of Canada (BOC) published a paper on designing inclusive and user-friendly digital payment systems, focusing on fostering empathy for and identifying the needs of users who exhibit behaviors that indicate they encounter accessibility or usability barriers in digital systems. Specifically, it examines two types of users based on two common behaviors: users who rely on others to perform tasks and those who avoid interacting with technology. The findings show that individuals in the two groups avoid systems they expect lack usability. Addressing these issues through standard accessibility practices, live assistance and thoughtful interface design can enhance user interaction and trust. For accessibility issues that cannot realistically be eliminated, technology that enhances cooperative relationships and allows account owners to control information sharing is key.

Donut aims to make crypto investing more accessible for the average consumer and help them educate about investing, crypto and the underlying technologies. The app allows users to invest in baskets of digital assets through a "gamified user interface" and is optimized for recurring micro-investing transactions.

"In principle, individuals should have the ability to interface directly with the central banks as they do with physical money and not be forced to use commercial banks. Even if consumers voluntarily choose to perform a majority of their financial interactions through commercial banks, the option to exit the relationship should be maintained. Otherwise, the government would be removing consumer choice and mandating patronage of a highly concentrated sector."

"Simplify your life with Cambodia's only all-in-one mobile payment and banking app. Bakong redefines mobile payment and banking by combining e-wallets, mobile payments, online banking and financial applications within one easy-to-use interface for any preferred bank account. Stop switching between apps todayand enjoy unrivalled simplicity, convenience and security with Bakong."

Deutsche Börse, Deutsche Bundesbank and Germany's Finance Agency successfully tested a settlement interface for electronic securities, working with a range of other market participants. Securities settlement using distributed ledger technology (DLT) is performed with the aid of a "trigger" solution and a transaction coordinator in TARGET2, the Eurosystem's large-value payment system. In doing so, the participants have demonstrated that it is possible to establish a technological bridge between blockchain technology and conventional payment systems to settle securities in central bank money with no need to create central bank digital currency.

The BIS Innovation Hub and SWIFT announced the three winners of the ISO 20022 hackathon, which invited teams to build and showcase solutions that enhance cross-border payments, using the ISO 20022 standard for payments messages and application programming interfaces (APIs).