As we all know by now, VAMP measures fraud rates and disputes across the aggregated activity of all merchants, sitting under one provider, sharing the same rails. It was good for VISA – because under this model, payment providers became directly incentivised to monitor merchant behaviour more actively, control, fraud exposure, and tighten onboarding decisions. However, when payment providers or aggregators assign the same descriptor to multiple merchants, to group together si

As of now, the banks and payment providers are approaching AI with caution. Understanding and dealing with agents needs a lot of training and expertise, and it can be a massive risk to the classic systems. We have seen that banks have already increased scrutiny and are demanding more documentation on “AI-assisted” or “autonomous” flows. When a merchant implements an AI tool, the processing can look almost identical to the traditional fraud pattern. Where businesses see innova

We are proud that The Soltesz Institute has been recognised as The Most Innovative Payments and Banking Education Institute in Dubai for 2026 , by the Global Business & Finance Magazine! Our mission to create an ethical and transparent payment and banking industry continues to gain international recognition as we are strengthening our presence in the Middle East through strong local partnerships and growing demand for a standardised and certified, practical knowledge. This r

In this webinar, I sat down with Ehud Tal , a cyber and crypto security expert who has built exchanges, crypto desks, and institutional setups since the early days of Bitcoin. The question was: if everything is digital, why does crypto security feel so different from traditional banking security, and why do institutions keep making the same mistakes when they enter the digital asset space? The answer turned out to be uncomfortable, and revealing a lot more than we expected. A

My article “When Payment Providers Trap Merchants” has been published in The Green Sheet magazine! This publication known for its strong editorial standards and long standing role in shaping the payment industry. The article shows how payment pricing, contracts, and exit terms can influence cash flow, risk, and business continuity and why teams only notice the damage when it's already done. The article explains how merchants can get locked into contracts which are never fully

Everyone is talking about stablecoins! Sure, they are fast, modern, and have the ability to revamp the whole banking industry. But behind the scenes, they still rely on the good old banks: pooled accounts, shared liquidity.. one freeze can impact every user at the same time! Also, stablecoins rely heavily on intermediaries. Many front-end platforms and apps are actually just the reseller (white label or under their own license) of the same issuers. This means companies have z