In September, over 6,000 European digital finance and web3 enthusiasts descended on Barcelona for the European Blockchain Convention. Our Chief Product Officer, Martin Hargreaves, was invited to take part in a panel session to share how our enterprise-grade technology is shaping a new generation of payments.
This year’s European Blockchain Convention attracted a global audience of founders, investors, regulators, developers and corporations, covering topics ranging from tokenisation and digital assets, to payments, regulation and institutional adoption.
Our Chief Product Officer, Martin Hargreaves, joined a panel moderated by Ousmene Jacques Mandeng from Accenture to discuss ‘How blockchain can change payments and why is it so hard?’ The other panelists were Gosia Williamson from the Bank of England and Vid Hribar from Raiffeisen Bank International.
Martin was called on to discuss why adoption of blockchain in payments has been so slow. He explained that displacing traditional payments infrastructure is extremely difficult – drawing on the examples of faster payments and contactless, both of which took over ten years to become commonplace – he believes focusing on smaller use cases will help accelerate the adoption of blockchain.
Mandeng pointed out that banks have already invested heavily in payments infrastructure, which may create reluctancy to invest further. Drawing on his own experience, Vid Hribar said, “the focus now has been on building the infrastructure but not the use cases,” he added, “we need solutions that directly solve a client need that can then be paired with a relevant use case.”
The conversation then shifted to the role the public sector plays in supporting innovation in payments. Gosia Williamson said that central banks are not just regulators, but infrastructure providers too, “we need the industry to tell us what the use cases are, then we can work together to bridge the gap between traditional and digital finance.”
So, what are the strongest blockchain use cases in payments? Martin’s answer emphasised that use cases must go above and beyond what we have today. He referenced Quant’s work in programmable payments as an example, “we’ve looked at defining what programmability means, but also how it can be used to mitigate risk, one example being through the use of lock and release payments,” he continued “this model translates to several corporate use cases too.”
Mandeng then asked the panelists to share their opinions on private vs. public blockchains – specifically which of these is more likely to dominate the payments landscape.
“From a regulatory perspective, there are two key challenges associated with permissionless ledgers – governance and oversight, and settlement finality,” Williamson commented. “Systemic payment systems are subject to stricter regulation, they need the necessary risk management to ensure regulatory requirements can be met.”
Martin echoed this sentiment, “the control and regulatory control that private networks offer means that we’re likely to see enterprise-level projects on private blockchains.”
Closing the session, Martin shared his hopes for the future: “It’s an exciting time with lots of development, but it’s hard to predict exactly where we’ll be by 2030, I hope to see one or two breakout use cases that will really drive adoption.”
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