RTIH AI in Retail Awards Payments Innovation category finalists announced

We’re pleased to announce the shortlist for the RTIH AI in Retail Awards Payments Innovation category.

This award recognises AI powered payment initiatives that are both innovative and customer and retailer friendly.

We’re looking to reward a project that has the potential to increase a retailer’s competitiveness and effectiveness, and to improve the shopper experience. Bonus points if the project could be considered a first in the market.

Congratulations to all those who made it through the initial submission process. We received a huge number of impressive entries highlighting companies who not only recognise the potential of AI, but also make it usable in everyday work - resulting in more efficiency and innovation in all areas.

It’s now over to our judging panel who will decide the winners to be announced at the RTIH AI in Retail Awards Ceremony, taking place  at The Barbican in Central London on Thursday, 29th January.

This will kick off with a drinks reception in the stunning Conservatory, followed by a three course meal, and awards ceremony in the Garden Room, presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Lucy Porter.

To book your place at the RTIH AI in Retail Awards Ceremony, click here.

Our 2025 runners and riders as follows:

LatentView Analytics

A leading global marketplace has deployed XGBoost-based Gradient Boosted Decision Tree (GBDT) models to enhance real-time payment authorisation and fraud detection.

These models analyse transaction, behavioral, and velocity data, such as card usage patterns,buyer history, and device signals, to assess risk and improve approval accuracy. Integrated across multiple payment processors, this helped boost authorisation success by about 1%. Continuous retraining using chargeback and dispute feedback ensures adaptive performance.

This AI driven framework reduces financial losses, accelerates verification, and balances fraud prevention with seamless user experience across the marketplace’s global payments ecosystem

Paytiko

Paytiko’s Growth Hub is an AI powered payment recommendation engine designed to revolutionise the way merchants manage online transactions.

By analysing real-time data and user behaviour, Growth Hub intelligently suggests optimal payment methods, routing options, and PSPs - to boost approval rates, reduce fees, and enhance customer conversion.

This feature not only empowers retailers with smarter, data driven decisions but also transforms the end-user checkout experience through faster, localised, and personalised payment journeys. Growth Hub delivers tangible automated improvements to merchant performance, shopper satisfaction, and bottomline growth, all from a single, unified dashboard.

Riskified

Adaptive Checkout by Riskified is a fraud prevention solution that dynamically assesses each transaction’s risk in real-time, reducing false declines and increasing approvals.

Designed for e-commerce merchants, it personalises the checkout experience by adapting fraud decisions to each customer’s profile and transaction context. By minimising mistaken declines, it boosts conversion rates and revenue while maintaining strong fraud protection.

Serving global merchants and analysing millions of transactions daily, Adaptive Checkout offers a smarter, more flexible way to manage payment risk,improving both retailer competitiveness and shopper experience and satisfaction.

Scantranx

Small and medium-sized retailers face complex payment challenges, high transaction costs, fraud exposure, and fragmented systems across in-store and e-commerce channels.

Traditional PoS and payment gateways often lack integration, leading to reconciliation delays, chargeback risks, and poor customer experience. Many retailers also struggle to adopt advanced fraud detection tools due to cost and technical barriers.

Scantranx recognised this gap during its deployment across emerging and developed markets, where payment inefficiencies directly impacted profitability and customer trust. The challenge was to develop an AI driven payment system that seamlessly connects physical and digital sales channels, reduces fraud, and enables retailers to compete with enterprise grade solutions without requiring extensive technical expertise or infrastructure investment.

VenHub Global

VenHub Global is revolutionising bricks and mortar retail with the fully autonomous Smart Store, designed for 24/7 operation, zero on-site staff, and maximum efficiency.

Its modular units combine AI, robotics, and robotics arms to eliminate labour costs, reduce shrinkage, and operate in high traffic or underserved areas where traditional retail fails. Four Initial deployments across California include a landmark store at LAX Airport/Metro Transit Center and one at the Hollywood Bowl.

VenHub is more than innovation - it’s a blueprint for the future of retail. By solving the biggest challenges facing physical retail, it enables a sustainable, scalable model that empowers entrepreneurs and redefines what’s possible in convenience commerce.