Our payments expert Przemysław Wojtyna led the discussion “Future of Payments: The revolution will not be wired”. It was held on the second day of the Finance Magnates London Summit 2022. 

During the panel, he was joined by industry experts, including David Backshall from TerraPay, Anna Gladka from Volt.io, Fotini Tsikkou from ECOMMBX, and Abha Garg from Capital Wallet.

The main goal of the round-table discussion was to answer the following questions:

• Do regulators stifle or push innovation in payments?
• How does the BNPL explosion affect merchants and vendors?
• Where are crypto payments headed, and is the Metaverse “a special case”?
• Will Elon Musk’s Twitter become a ”PayPal on steroids”?

You can watch the recording below. We also prepared a summary of the conversation.

Future of payments regulation

Przemysław Wojtyna opened with an interesting question about the MICA directive, which started the discussion about the future of crypto regulations. The European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (“MiCA”) legislation allows countries throughout the European Union to stabilise their financial systems and protect end consumers from abuse. The panellists discussed how it would affect the future of crypto payments. They agreed that the regulatory uniformity that the European Union can provide is potentially a tremendous advantage for crypto companies and end consumers. Panellists also noticed, however, that for it to be favourable for businesses worldwide, it needs to take into account the challenges it may bring to the table.

Technological standards

Discussing the future of payments, speakers went on to examine a broader perspective and technological standards used in the industry. They looked at the competition that arose between popular cross-border payment methods like SWIFT and instant payments that have been getting traction for a while now. It was suggested that there should be a more collaborative effort to create a system suitable for all market participants. Some panellists believed that some technologies we still use today might soon become a thing of the past.

The importance of end-users’ trust

Metaverse and BNPL (buy now, pay later) were other topics the participants discussed, noting that their popularity will grow exponentially as more and more companies include them in their strategies. They discussed Elon Musk’s attempts to transform Twitter into a payment system and wondered whether it would succeed. The main issues raised concern the end-users’ trust and freedom of choice. Panellists suggested that it is crucial for any payment system to offer different payment options and allow customers to choose the one that will suit their needs.
As panellists agreed, the future of payments will lie in modern solutions that can be trusted by market participants and offer hassle-free transfers. If you need a crypto payment gateway that can do just that, check our processing technology, Match2Pay.