Stablecoins, PayFi and Concordium: Charting the Future of Smart Money from London
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From agentic finance to identity-first infrastructure, London’s recent PayFi Connections event revealed why the future of Smart Money may very well be built here—and why Concordium is poised to lead it.
The payment world is undergoing a seismic shift, and Concordium is helping lead the charge. On July 9th at London’s Encode Hub, Concordium hosted a pivotal “Payfi Connections” event titled “The Rise of Stablecoins: What Comes Next?” The evening brought together a powerhouse of innovators across stablecoins, blockchain infrastructure, and payments engineering. The topic? Not just what’s next, but what’s already happening at the bleeding edge of programmable Smart Money.
Moderated by Rachel Black, Solutions Engineer at Concordium, the panel’s takeaway was clear: stablecoins are no longer just a crypto-native experiment. Rather, they’re becoming the backbone of a new financial system. As that system matures, digital ID verification, compliance, and trust will define who comes out on top. This was echoed by the expert panelists: Mike Milner, Chief Commercial Officer at Concordium; Maximillian Engelen, Director of Sales at Utila; Kadar Sayed Abdi, Founder & CEO of Astro Labs; and Rubin Blamey, Co-Founder & COO of Agant, an issuer of the GBP-backed stablecoin GBPA. Together, they painted a vision of stablecoins as programmable, compliant, Smart Money infrastructure powering the next generation of global payments.This is precisely where Concordium steps in.
Stablecoins: From Disruption to Dominance
Since 2019, stablecoin usage has exploded 45 times over with a $232B+ market cap. But their rise isn’t due to a rejection of fiat. They’re winning because stablecoins simply offer smarter money, and a fundamentally better experience. Instant settlement, 24/7 availability without middlemen, lower fees, cross-border freedom, and programmable functionality have made stablecoins a viable choice for institutions and individuals alike.
“Institutions are now leading the charge. They’re moving billions, and they want programmable cash.”
All panelists agreed that while retail adoption is growing, institutions are now leading the charge, with billions moving via blockchain-based rails. Emerging markets like Argentina or Nigeria are turning to dollar-pegged stablecoins as inflation ravages local currencies, while major players such as Stripe are integrating stablecoin support into full-stack payment infrastructure.
Autonomous Finance & Agentic Payments
One of the most compelling (and unexpected) themes of the event was the rise of agentic payments – autonomous AI agents executing financial transactions. Imagine a travel assistant that books your flights, a research bot that pays for your access to gated content, or a smart agent that buys compute time or trains data without human input. In this new paradigm, stablecoins have the potential to become the native currency of the machine economy. They are always on, borderless, programmable, and could increasingly evolve as Smart Money that can move, decide and adapt without human intervention.
“AI agents won’t wait for SWIFT. They’ll need always-on, programmable, settlement rails.”
A Fragmented Future, and the Untapped Power of Smart Money
The panel also tackled a hot industry debate: Is this a winner-takes-all market? The consensus was a confident no. Instead, the future points to thousands of stablecoins tailored to specific verticals, apps, and regions alongside branded stable assets from major platforms like Robinhood and Paypal. There’s even room for nation-states launching commodity or BTC-backed currencies. In this new ecosystem, distribution is the moat: whoever controls the user interface and the user relationship, controls the payment flow.
Concordium—with its protocol-level ID layer and secure, compliance-ready issuance model—sees itself as the foundation for this explosion of Smart Money. Beyond the obvious use cases, the panel spotlighted a range of high-potential applications for stablecoins that are still under the radar. From on-chain FX trading and cross-border remittances, tokenized treasuries and repo markets, to AI-native data marketplaces, micropayment for streaming and APIs, and corporate treasuries leveraging stablecoins for real-time yield and programmable disbursements, these use cases represent billions–if not trillions– of dollars in traditional value flows that could potentially migrate onto blockchain-based rails.
Regulation, Multi-Currency & the London Advantage
The regulatory landscape in Europe and the UK is evolving fast, paving the way for stablecoin adoption. MiCA is now live in the EU, setting clear rules for issuance and oversight, while the UK follows with updated AML rules and a proposed stablecoin framework. Some panelists praised MiCA for providing structure and legitimacy, while others warned that overly rigid rules could risk stifling innovation. Still, the consensus was strong: regulatory clarity is better than uncertainty.
“MiCA is strict, but it gives us a sandbox. Now we can build.”
That clarity is already having an impact. While USD-backed stablecoins may dominate today, London –Britain’s capital market powerhouse–is primed for GBP-backed stablecoins like GBPA to serve a growing demand for local-currency alternatives. Agant’s Founder and issuer of GBPA, Andrew MacKenzie, shared his vision for a sterling tool supporting global commerce.
London’s edge is strong with its legacy banking, blockchain deployment and AI innovation. Throw Concordium’s identity-first infrastructure into the mix, and London now has the ingredients to become a global PayFi hub.
Building PayFi Together
Concordium’s PayFi Connections initiative isn’t just a meetup—it’s a movement. From real-time treasury flows and FX to machine-to-machine micropayments, the infrastructure cracks are visible. Concordium is stepping into them, shaping the conversation and turning PayFi potential into kinetic momentum.
Through identity-first, compliance-ready infrastructure, it’s laying the foundation for a programmable, trusted, multi-currency future of Smart Money. It’s not a dream, it's happening live in the heart of London.
Join the “PayFi Connections - London Payments & Stablecoins” Telegram group formed in tandem with this event to bring together builders, founders, and regulators advancing next-gen payment rails.