# The Payments Space Race | DC Fintech Week 2025

- Channel: [DC Fintech Week](https://streameth.org/dc-fintech-week)
- Date: 2025-12-21
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-s4BH-1sQjLs
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4BH-1sQjLs

## Transcript

So, I know you've all been waiting for this particular session, not just because we are thinking about innovation day in and day out, but that as we live and breathe payments innovation, we're always looking for analogies. Maybe it's that part of me that likes to go and read the last page of a book first. But looking for the patterns in those that have come before us um can give us a sense of what to expect, what to steal ourselves against, and how to best be prepared. And so looking up at the stars is one of those ways that I think um we can think about uh the aspirations of the payments space. Um and so aptly titled um we bring you the payment space race. Um I am excited to be joined by um a panel that has the benefit of living and breathing these issues. And so um I'm going to get out of the way in a second um and let them take it away. But before I do, I do want to set the stage a little bit. Um, in preparing for this panel, it gave me an excuse to really um tap into my inner child and and think about, you know, the lessons that we were taught about the American space race um and the way that we as a society banded together, looking upward, joining forces. We had academics, scientists, technologists, educators, all with a common purpose. Um, not just to get to the moon, but I suppose to win. As many of us recall, it was a big part of that narrative. Um, and so that combination of forces was really necessary to get us upwards to vault a rocket. Um, and I think a lot of the things we're talking about in the context of the space race from a payments perspective is much the same. How we all join forces and get to that place together because the ambitions of this industry as are, as we all know, very lofty. And so I am excited to bring to you um Joe Longo, the chair of the Australian Securities Investments Commission, Katherine Atkins, who's the chief legal officer and chief compliance officer at a firm, Wade Arnold, the co-founder and CEO of Move, and Sir Rob Sharma, the VP of product management at uh in it. And so I think you'll quickly see why this combination of forces is going to help us really explore this topic in a really thoughtful way. So kicking us off surv um into it isn't traditionally thought of or at least for those who aren't sort of in this space day in and day out as a payments company but in many ways it very much is. Um, you've got the benefit of a wide array of offerings, whether it's QuickBooks money, QuickBooks payroll, we've got Credit Karma money, Turboax 5 days early, and the list goes on. Um, you're moving billions of dollars in payments annually. How do you think about that opportunity to solve a payments problem for your customers? And how has it really changed the way that INT thinks about itself as a company? >> Yeah. Uh, first, uh, thank you for having me. It's great to be joined uh with this panel. Um and and to your question, yes, you're right. Uh Intude isn't branded as a payments company, but in reality, money movement is the connective tissue across our ecosystem of 100 million plus customers. Now, when you zoom out, uh everything we do is to help small businesses and consumers to make and manage money decisions. They vary from getting paid to paying others to building credit to saving more to staying tax compliant. And and we do this through our suite of products across QuickBooks, Mailchimp, Credit Karma, and Turboax. And if you really look deeply, payments is the payments are the atomic unit which makes all of this possible. And and in the last financial year across our product lines, we moved more than a few hundred billion dollars. And that scale changed how we see ourselves, not as a software provider, but as a financial platform that helps our customer make these money decisions. Now, from a small business perspective, the friction isn't only in moving money. It is in getting paid, getting access to capital, managing their back office operations. Similarly, on the consumer side, the challenges are getting faster access to their payroll or tax refunds. Uh how do they know uh when to pay down their debts, which debt to pay down, how do they save more? So, we have shifted away from building bespoke products and features and have started building financial workflows that unify identity, data, AI and money movement into one. And in short, we have stopped treating payments as plumbing and have started treating it as a core customer value driver and a data flywheel. And that mindset has fundamentally changed how we operate. And looking forward, payments and money is one of the top priority for us. >> I love that. Um, so and I know a lot of us in this room are always thinking about, you know, what makes this company sort of have unique value and as time goes on, I think money and money movement is becoming a core tenant to so many operations. Um, Katherine, there was something really interesting that Sarra just said about sort of solving problems for customers, right? Sort of being at the heart of it. And I know that um a firm has been really clear about its mission to on to deliver honest financial products that improve lives which is a noble goal for sure. Um how do you think about the role of the consumer um as it relates to sort of a firm's product building initiatives? >> Well the consumer is at the core of everything we do literally um everything we do it's part of our mission. um you you've stated the vision, it's obviously there. Um and we solve problems with the customer in mind um over and over and over again. And in that process, we believe that we are doing it in a unique way that is beneficial to the consumer um and uh unique in our ecosystem of BNPL. uh customers know upfront what they uh are going to be charged and how much they're going to have to pay every month. It's all disclosed. We don't have any late fees. We don't do any sort of fine print kind of approach to consumer uh credit and we think in the process of doing that we are um benefiting the customers in our ecosystem in a very um unique way. We also underwrite every transaction which is very different. So if you can imagine uh you're buying something online and how quickly that has to happen u because we underwrite to the transaction and um because we don't charge any late fees that I want to emphasize that because it's so important to consumers. We believe they can pay us back because we have no incentive to underwrite them to not pay us back [laughter] because we don't get paid. Um, and uh, we're we're we're we are really exciting excited about what we're doing and one day we hope that there are no late fees anywhere in the consumer finance space. It's probably way off into the future. Um, but that's our goal. >> And so I think it's fair to say that this idea that sort of the interest of consumers and innovation being at odds is a bit sort of, you know, maybe an outmoded view. >> Absolutely. You said it better than I could say it myself. I think they are they absolutely coexist and I think if you try to do the right thing by the consumer, it forces you to be more innovative because the status quo um benefits from consumers maybe uh not having the best experience. And so, uh, if you have that at at your core, you're forced to be innovative because it's different. You have to be different. >> So, the consumer sort of is fueling that innovation. >> We believe it does. >> Absolutely. Okay. Um, so Joe, you're the guinea pig on the panel. We We have our We have our regulator on the panel, which means we're now nice and balanced. Kidding. Um, want to make sure we're getting your perspective as a chair of ASICH. Um you're seeing payment the payment space race playing out in a lot of different fronts no doubt across industries product types um even geographies. There's definitely a lot of talk about sort of the need for harmonization of global standards so that we can really create sort of a um a means by which companies can compete globally. From your perch, are there lessons to be learned from the way that competition is playing out whether it's in APAC or otherwise? From a regulatory point of view, our objective is to encourage competition and uh a wide range of options for uh consumers in Australia. The for those of you who've been to Australia, we're great uh adapters of payment technologies. Um and indeed as we speak um the Reserve Bank and fellow regulators we're looking at broadening uh the range of um payment uh uh facilities and avenues. Indeed it's it's the other way around. The part of the policy um issue is that we have a regulatory framework that encourages that innovation and new products in the market. And so recent legislation has been passed and more legislation is coming to make sure that continues uh that competition continues. So I think I think we've heard a lot about consumers. I think consumers will benefit uh from that. So uh it's where we stand on competition. >> Competition is another form of fuel, right? Promoting innovation but meanwhile creating that environment where where companies can >> Yeah. Well, that we we hear a lot about the um uh consumer protection and the and the need for the uh for that the interest to be observed. But the innovation can't can't really be expected to happen confidently and for investment in that innovation to happen confidently if if if the innovators don't see a pathway to their product being commercialized and um licensed. So that the licensing regime in Australia around payment systems is about to change and broaden. There's been a lot of uh controversy about search charges uh and the reserve bank is leading the way there. U depending on what payment facility you use, you get charged for it in Australia or the merchant has to absorb the cost. So I think there are some interesting policy questions about who bears the cost of um these services and uh and and to what extent is that cost um transparent to the consumer. >> I'm hearing a theme here which I like a lot. Um, Wade, you've built Move to modernize payment rails from the ground up and you've got um early stage fintexs to over a thousand financial institutions, which when you when I learned that kind of blew my mind. Um, so what common patterns are you seeing in embedded finance that customers are demanding um that really is calling for modernization of infrastructure? I think um payment choice is the biggest driver. So um consumers lead the way, consumers work at businesses too. And so um what we see the most is just you know combinations of existing payment rails and enabling them for different use cases. So uh we re re recently partnered with PayPal so you could pay your mortgage with Venmo. um we didn't if you go to the market and you say would you like to pay your mortgage with Venmo probably you know you get no hands but if you if you say hey you could make one of your car payments or your mortgage payment with your excess balance in Venmo would you like to use that one time rather than you know a fee to get it back to your bank now you're really you're really excited about that or with one click you can open a bank account with Apple Pay um those are those are not um necessarily like modalities that if you went to the bank and said, "Hey, your customers really want to open an account with Apple Pay or get a loan through Google Pay." Um, nobody would say that their customers want that. But when you give that option to them, then all of a sudden the consumer speaks and starts using kind of these combinations of different payment rails in ways that you wouldn't have imagined they would use. >> And so in some ways you are not just sort of channeling the voice of the consumer, but you're kind of anticipating where the consumer might want to go. and and meanwhile I think being really thoughtful about ways that you can present those modalities maybe in an embedded context that results in different behavior. >> Absolutely. So giving consumers choices is kind of what we're built for at Move. We're not a payments network but we partner with all the payment networks so that so that we can move money however that end user wants. And I think historically maybe you stick to wire and a because you fundamentally don't know what percentage of people want to have visa direct as a way of getting that money rather than an a so you just don't do it. Um, but if you enable all those features, you know, our job is to make it easy for you to enable all those features, then the consumer can decide whether or not they want to use Visa Direct versus, you know, somebody in a in a big office building deciding what their consumer actually wants. >> Different kind of empowerment. So, Katherine, um, we've got the, you know, payments is global and I know a firm is, um, expanding into lots of different markets. Um, I wanted to ask sort of beyond the US and the UK. Um, I know there's been a recent announcement of a launch in Europe, um, Western Europe and Australia. Um, the world's your oyster, it seems. Um, how do you keep, you know, sort of that regulatory complexity at the four without letting letting it um styy your efforts to grow and expand? >> Oh gosh. Um, wait, no, just laughing. [laughter] sidebar, but it's look, I I like to think of it as a patchwork quilt, but the overarching symbol in the patchwork is maybe a star or some pattern, some themes. The themes are the same across geos, whether it's in the US, the states, Fed, internationally, um, everybody wants to do right by the consumer. So, as long as your northstar is doing right by the consumer from a product development standpoint, um, you're probably going to be okay. Obviously, there's a million nuances in the doing it right part. And to your question, Sarah, how do you keep track of all of that? It it it's a it's a challenge, you know, but it's it's doable. You have people dedicated to it. You share information. You partner with your product team. Um, and you let them know. um as much as you can well in advance that changes are coming. You know, the regulatory environment in Australia has changed recently in my industry. Um so what are you going to do when you enter Australia and and there's now new regulation? Well, you're going to look at them and you're going to make sure you comply. That's the same across the platform, but I don't want to um uh make the task a small one. It's a large one. Um, but we we really do start with the northstar of we're going to do the right thing and and treat our customers fairly and then the de details of how that plays out so that you're regulatory compliant may vary by jurisdiction. Um, but but I think overall you're you're also okay most of the time because you want to the second piece of it is develop relationships with the regulators, right? regulators to your point of people who work in companies or consumers. I mean, regulators are people too, right, Joe? And so, you know, get to know the regulator regulators. Get have them get to know you. Have them understand your products. Sit and walk them through it. Um, and we have found great receptivity with with that sort of approach. So, it's it's both. You got to know your stuff and you got to develop the relationships. So I think I think you said that rather beautifully and I think keeping those with the with the anchor in mission of consumers first. I think it's easier to make sense of it all. For sure. Um Wade, you've got a company that didn't exist four years ago. Now you're moving billions of dollars um in payments um each month. How do you think about, and this is, I think, a unique challenge for for fairly young companies, that engagement piece with policy makers and regulators that Katherine mentioned, right? When you're a company that's been around the block and you've had the benefit of history and lots of opportunities for touch point, that might look different. How do you think about that engagement with policy makers as a younger company? >> Yeah, I think first I called Chris four and a half years ago and said, "Hey, what do you think?" um about this idea and thankfully invited me here today. But um um one of the big things we did in the first 10 hires is we we hired a former OC examiner onto our compliance team. And to this day, we don't always agree. Um, but it it put somebody that can interact with regulators on our team so that we could really decide what what fights do we want to actually fight and then also have that intimate context of how the OC thought on staff and that allowed us to prepare ourselves better to be able to, you know, work with financial institutions, the OC, the NCUA, um, and come from a position of not reaction but a position of strength as a startup. So, so we would show up with all the audits and all the documentation and everything ready um to satisfy those needs um and then you know really meet the regulators where they're at. So the I think we've we've learned to not try and leapfrog regulator regulation in the United States or or you get a a crypto winter. um but meeting them and then once you earn the right to be listened to then you can start sharing uh where you want to go. Um you know it's kind of funny that we're we're in the AWS building. Um my last company was a digital banking company that was built. We're one of the first fintexs in in AWS. And so just explaining to the OC, you know, where permission data was at when it's in this cloud thing, very scary. Um when the regulation actually said, you need to be able to go show me which physical hardware or hard drive um that PI PII data resided on. And so going through that experience and learning um you know kind of as you mentioned if the intent is to actually be safer and more secure uh every reg and take care of the consumer every regulator agrees. Uh now it's a question of how do we kind of get everyone up to speed on how we're going to meet that that intent of taking care of the consumer and and protecting their data. So, I heard a couple things there that I think are really important lessons for us to all sort of um hold fast to. So, one is make sure you've got people on your team who speak regulator, which sounds small but can be huge. The second is being really mindful of the way that your regulators are going to contextualize what it is you're doing. And maybe sort of a consumer first mindset is a bit of a bridge there in terms of being able to sort of bring it back to as Katherine said sort of first principles. And so while we might have differences in how we read a requirement or a black letter sort of um requirement if we can ground it in that maybe that helps us break the log jam. Does that feel right? I >> I think that's perfect. And as you said, if your north star, right, if um you know, when we were inside of AWS and we were told to get out, you know, then we you had a real conversation of like really do you want the Amazon team running the edge routers and and cyber security or do you want me to hire a person and buy a Cisco switch and try and figure that out myself? Um but it wasn't about the technology solve. It was about the security of the end user and their data. Uh, and if you could keep the focus on we agree that we agree about this. We agree we want to keep the consumer safe. Um, now how we do it. Let's let's hit a whiteboard and we'll explain how the cloud works. >> All right, Joe, it's time to bring it to you so that you can take it home on this point. So, we've got lots of different sort of, you know, risks that are being weighed. um other factors like global competitiveness and innovation. You touched on that. How do you approach these risks in the context of payments where the technology as we all know is moving so so rapidly? Well, we share that we share that responsibility with the Reserve Bank and Reserve Bank's running a couple of pilots relating to stable coins and um and other and they're they're the frontline regulator on um on search charging of these systems. But but I think what the really fundamental point to make is we all want the same outcomes. Now when the when from a regatory or credential perspective, we will bring a different lens to that. But what's really important is that we actually all want the same outcomes for consumers and I think it behooves regulators to engage and what I've heard is that obviously is what the private sector seeks to do with regulators. So I don't think there needs to be any great mystique here. If we really want to do the best thing for consumers and in the public interest, then private and public have got to come together and really understand these technologies and how they can be harnessed to make the economy more productive to make um businesses large and small and consumers be able to transact to you know more confidently and more effectively. But but if there's one thing I've really learned particularly over the last few years is that regulators have got to engage with the technology and make an effort to understand it and secondly to understand the commerciality the commercial context in which those uh that technology is developing um because in the end that's what certainly my job is to encourage confident participation in the economy so I can't do that with with my head in the and I've got I've got to um not be frightened by the technology and I've got to invest in understanding it. Um having said all that, there will be times when the regulator is going to come up with an inconvenient answer. It's going to add cost to the process. Um and that's that's on the regulator. But in the end, what's really important is we want the same outcomes for consumers. Do you think it helps when the technology is framed around those shared objectives you mentioned? We all I think we're we're all aligned in this idea that the the point of all this is not to just launch a rocket, right? It is really about service to the consumer, solving real problems, adding and delivering real value. Does it help the sort of dynamic of the conversation from your perspective when the company comes in and says not just here's this bright shiny thing I'm building but here's the problem I'm trying to solve and here's how I think it benefits. >> Well well I think that's a very productive perspective. The at the end of the day the role of the regulator or the reserve bank is to understand what you plan to do and to make a decision about whether it should be allowed to be done. And that means having a deep understanding particular of a new technology that that's been untested or relatively untested. You can't form a risk assessment of it or say anything sensible about what conditions the introduction of that technology should be imposed on uh without understanding it. Now that that that that's a non-trivial process. I mean that that could require hours of weeks of of engagement of one form or another. Uh but but in the end, as I've said a moment ago, we want a safe, resilient uh payment uh system, whatever it might be, that everyone understands. And I think the key word here is trust. The uh consumers will engage with the technology if they trust it. And I know in Australia with artificial intelligence technologies, Australians are a bit ambivalent about AI and hopefully that will change. But the but what's underlying that is trust. So all of these payment systems will be used if consumers and businesses trust them. >> Trust is a really really powerful thing and I think that requires a kind of repeat play, right? It's not just about a single interaction, but it's a series of interactions and um opportunities for us to build that together. Surv, I'm going to ask you to look into your crystal ball. I know you're capable. I'm very confident in this. Um as you think sort of ahead, what do you think will matter most to consumers and small businesses? Is it payment velocity? Is it control over rails? Is it something else? How do you think about that? Oh, I think that's a great question. Um, see, I have always believed that velocity has been the northstar of money. Uh, you know, from ships carrying gold across oceans to paper IUS to, uh, faster money movement rails to stable coins. Uh, every evolution of money has been about how do you move value faster with confidence. If if you have owned a small business or you know somebody who owns a small business, you know that cash flow is the lifeblood of the businesses and uh uh faster money movement could mean business survival. Similarly for consumer it is a difference between stability and stress and uh this is one area where we are also actively u uh working towards seeing if federal reserve payment rails can be open to qualified and and and regulated fintech so that we can bring this benefit to both consumer and small businesses. Now given this context the fundamental need of velocity is not going to go away. It is actually becoming a default expectation. What many other companies have already done it by abstracting that complexity by bringing those customers into their network. How do you open open that network so that everybody can make those payment and payment not only moves but settles instantly and one of the uh as as as every payment becomes instant what will start differentiating the experience is going to be the agency and intelligence. What it means is that money not only moves faster but it starts moving smarter. This is where I believe over the next 5 years agentic payments would play a significant role where money would move on behalf of a user under a set of trusted constraints. Now you can imagine a small business who is able to make a bill payment that uh that is made by selection of a payment instrument that optimizes their cash flow or a consumer who not only gets faster access to their payroll or tax refunds but is able to uh uh pay down this their debts smartly is able to know how do I save more. Uh therefore uh you know uh with with also with the intersection of uh we are at a very unique point where the intersection of stable coins uh AI uh intelligent orchestration faster money movement rails is going to accelerate this trend and I strongly believe that users would have agency over when where and how the value would move. So so to to to summarize velocity is what got us here and will continue us going uh but agency would define what comes next. So, so you know, I strongly believe the future of money is not only going to be fast, it is going to be self-directed. And that's what keeps me excited about the space. >> It's hard not to get excited hearing you talk about it. All right. So, in closing, I'm going to ask each of our panelists to in a single word, it's going to be hard, a single word, what adjective would you use to describe this moment in payments? It can be a feeling, it can be a sentiment. Rob, >> I'm already excited. So exciting is what I would go with. >> Katherine, >> warp speed. >> It's hyphenated. So hyphenated. So one word. Okay. [laughter] Wait. >> You don't get kicked off. Aentic. >> The island. >> Mine would be agentic. >> Joe, how would you describe it? >> Choice. >> Oo. Okay. I hope that you all have enjoyed this uh this conversation as much as I have. Um we are definitely going to the moon. So, please thank our panelists.