Making Sense · Oct 24, 2026 · 19m · 12m saved
With Max Neukirchen, co-head of J.P. Morgan Global Payments · Umar Farooq, co-head of J.P. Morgan Global Payments
J.P. Morgan moves about $12 trillion a day through its payments network, with a record day this year of $17 trillion.
Most banks still treat payments as a back-office job for the treasury department. Max Neukirchen and Umar Farooq, who run J.P. Morgan's global payments business together as co-heads, said the function now sits next to product design itself, deciding whether a checkout converts or a ride ends without anyone touching a wallet.
"Payments is no longer just an expense item but a true revenue enabler." — Max Neukirchen
Max's and Umar's standing here comes from running the pipes that carry roughly a world GDP's worth of money every nine days, backed by a fraud-detection network that watches a few hundred million accounts a month.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 19 minutes of audio, 7 minutes of reading.
Here are the 6 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
J.P. Morgan moves $12 trillion a day through its payments network on average, with a record day this year of $17 trillion
Payments is now "a true revenue enabler," not just an expense line, because a one-click checkout converts better than a five-click one
Running real-time rails means J.P. Morgan operates 24/7, 365 with no downtime window left to patch its systems
Fraud attempts on clients' money this year already exceeded all of last year combined, even with a few hundred million accounts screened monthly
Payments has risen from a CFO topic to a CEO-and-board one, because it now drives revenue and new business models directly
On Kinexys, J.P. Morgan's blockchain platform, moving money on a Sunday for a Middle East client is solvable where legacy rails fail
1. Payments As Revenue
Umar opened by describing how payments have quietly disappeared from the customer's view.
Payments have become invisible to the customer, Umar says
"If you are in a ride hailing service, when you get out of the car, the payment just happens — no one actually thinks about making the payment. It's actually transparent." — Umar Farooq
That invisibility is now a design goal, not an accident: ride-hailing and e-commerce checkout both work only when the payment step disappears into the rest of the experience.
Max calls payments a revenue enabler, not a cost
"Payments is no longer just an expense item but a true revenue enabler." — Max Neukirchen
Max's point is mechanical rather than abstract: a one-click checkout converts more purchases than a five-click one, so the payment flow itself changes how much a company sells.
