FIS: Purchase Data Will Push Payments Beyond Transactions

Jakob Harrison, senior vice president of payment networks at FIS, said the speed of technological and consumer change is the pressure payments companies cannot ignore. He spoke with PYMNTS as part of its What's Next in Payments series, describing a landscape where AI, agentic commerce and shifting consumer expectations are all moving targets.

"The opportunity cost of not moving fast enough toward a world that we can already see will haunt us," Harrison said.

FIS's Smart Basket strategy reflects a bet that knowing what is being purchased can make payment data more useful. The company is building an item-level network into payments, giving participants more context than a simple transaction record provides. Harrison called it a move from transaction processing to transaction intelligence.

"The content of what someone is buying is far more relevant and valuable to that person and to those that are trying to provide services to them than the fact that they made a payment," he said.

That shift carries implications for the broader payments sector. If item-level data becomes standard, companies that rely on basic transaction processing could face margin pressure. Competitors that invest in enriched data networks may capture more value from the same payment flows.

Harrison said he doesn't expect a single inflection point. "It's a rare occurrence for there to be a big bang inflection point," he said. "It's usually the accumulation of a number of items." The work for payments executives, he added, is to recognize which signals matter before the answer becomes obvious.

He also tied the data strategy directly to agentic commerce. An AI agent needs context to make a useful decision. Without good transaction data, an agentic application risks delivering little more value than a consumer handling the purchase alone.

Harrison said his advice for the industry is to be "directional" rather than reactive. Move toward a chosen position unless the signals change. Competitor activity can confirm, not invalidate, a market reading.

FIS itself carries a mixed near-term outlook. The company's Alpha Score is 39 out of 100, reflecting cautious positioning among traders heading into the next earnings cycle. The FIS stock page provides the full score breakdown.

For the sector, the takeaway is that the battle is shifting from processing speed to data richness. Companies that can integrate item-level intelligence into their existing infrastructure may gain an edge. Those that treat payments as a utility risk being left behind as the definition of a transaction expands.