The first of a series of episodes that we recorded at Pay360 London 2025. We produced this episode in partnership with BPC, a payments processor that builds digital ecosystems that enable seamless payment experiences. Our guests were: Peter Theunis, SVP Sales, BPC Dan Wilson, Head of Payments Strategy & Partnerships, Nationwide Saira Khan, Head of Innovation & Partnerships, First Direct Bank Paul Horlock, Chief Payments Officer, Santander Sulabh Agarwal, Global Payments Lead, Accenture Carl Raven, Head of Issuer Enablers, Visa Peter Theunis, Senior Vice President of Sales at BPC Peter Theunis discusses BPC as a fintech company that has developed Smartvista, a white-label platform for payments, which banks and fintechs use for transactional banking. He highlights the company’s global reach with around 500 customers across 150 countries. He stresses the importance of modern technology for financial institutions, focusing on availability, resilience, and regulatory compliance. He also mentions the need for personalised services, AI-based operations, and the balance between fintech innovation and bank trust. Regarding top technology priorities, Peter lists cloud and API-driven platforms for scalability, real-time payment systems, and intelligent fraud prevention solutions. He also emphasises the significance of personalising services for customers. Looking to the future, Peter predicts that conversational banking with AI, embedded finance, and digital wallets linked to loyalty and stablecoins will be key trends. He also notes the potential rise of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), such as the digital pound in the UK, which is being closely monitored. Dan Wilson, Head of Payment Strategy at Nationwide Dan Wilson, Head of Payment Strategy at Nationwide, discusses several key aspects of the payments landscape. Regarding blockchain technology, he highlights its potential use cases, such as peer-to-peer payments and home buying, but notes the challenges of regulatory, technological, and user adoption hurdles before it can scale. For banks and building societies, Dan identifies three technology priorities: 1) Core platform modernisation and resiliency to ensure reliability and trust, 2) Developing user tools and features based on genuine needs rather than innovation for innovation’s sake, and 3) Strengthening fraud prevention, particularly addressing APP fraud, by embedding proactive controls into the payment journey. Looking ahead, Dan predicts continued growth in digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, with enhanced functionality such as the addition of stablecoins and more ways to pay via open banking and pay-by-bank options. He also anticipates further advancements in payment security, including biometrics, to better protect users. At Nationwide, Dan outlines the focus on payment modernisation, enhancing security, developing new payment tools, and creating a seamless user experience across all channels, from branches to digital platforms. Saira Khan, Head of Innovations and Partnerships at First Direct Saira Khan, Head of Innovations and Partnerships at First Direct, discusses several key topics. During her session on embedded finance, she emphasises the future of invisible banking, where financial services operate seamlessly behind the scenes, driving loyalty and strong value propositions. She highlights the importance of AI-powered finance, predicting that banks will not only know customers’ past actions but also anticipate future needs. Saira sees the next big leap in mobile and digital banking as the “invisible experience,” where banks are present at the point of sale in a way that feels seamless and unobtrusive, regardless of the channel. She also stresses the importance of speed, regulation, and security, particularly in terms of fraud prevention, as the pace of banking technology continues to accelerate. Looking ahead, Saira sees First Direct focusing on maintaining its strong customer experience and human-centric approach while prioritising safety and security. The bank will continue investing in these areas to ensure it offers valuable and secure services to its customers. Paul Horlock, Chief Payments Officer at Santander Paul Horlock, Chief Payments Officer at Santander, shares several insights during his conversation. He discusses the need for a clear roadmap in payment regulations, emphasizing that while a national payments vision exists, a detailed strategy is required to achieve it. He notes that such changes in payments technology, like account-to-account transfers or tokenization, will take years to fully implement, and the process must be iterative and modular. Paul stresses the critical need for technology investments, particularly in AI to combat fraud and the development of tokenization and smart contracts to improve payment security. He explains that this would ensure money only becomes valuable to a seller once goods are confirmed, reducing fraud risks in transactions. Looking forward, Paul highlights the incremental progress in digital and mobile banking, particularly leveraging open banking to make it easier for customers to move money seamlessly across apps. He also mentions that Santander’s strategy involves creating a more user-friendly banking experience, reducing customer time and effort, especially by enhancing their banking app. Strategically, Santander is focusing on leveraging its global reach, particularly in Latin America, North America, and Europe, to provide better services and improve its back-end systems, like the global card platform, to offer better products and lower costs for customers. Sulabh Agarwal, Global Payments Lead at Accenture Sulabh Agarwal, Global Payments Lead at Accenture, discusses the transformative impact of Generative AI (GenAI) in payments. He believes GenAI is here to stay, revolutionizing areas like personalization, transaction routing, and legacy system modernization. It’s also enhancing customer service and operational efficiency through AI-powered agents. On cross-border payments, Sulabh points to ongoing challenges like transaction complexity and pricing uncertainty, but highlights innovations such as Project Nexus and fintech solutions like Visa Direct. These, along with digital assets and stablecoins, are improving global payment systems, though financial crime prevention still creates delays. Sulabh advises banks to focus on digital wallet strategies, modernize infrastructure with cloud-native tech, and explore blockchain and stablecoins. He also sees digital assets and tokenization—beyond money to assets like homes and IDs—as the future of frictionless transactions in digital banking. Carl Raven, Head of Issuer Enablers at Visa Carl Raven, Head of Issuer Enablers at Visa, oversees relationships with issuer processors, program managers, and tech platforms across Europe. His role involves managing over 65 partners, making it a busy and sometimes challenging position. Carl discusses the trend of increasing outsourcing in payments, with 52% of Visa’s issuers in Europe outsourcing their services and a 1% increase year on year. In the UK, he notes consolidation and mergers, along with a focus on “click to pay” technology and AI integration into Visa’s products. He highlights key areas for enablers to prioritize, including cloud architecture for reliability, fraud prevention, and leveraging enhanced data. Carl emphasizes that staying ahead of sophisticated fraud requires continuous product innovation, mentioning Visa’s acquisition of Featurespace to bolster their fraud analysis capabilities. In partnership with PRCA members receive 10 CPD points for listening to this podcast if they log it on the CPD programme. View episode
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