The Payment Expert Podcast team breaks down the biggest announcements from UK FinTech Week, from the government’s push to unify digital money regulation to the FCA’s “no new rules” stance on agentic AI.
From the UK government’s landmark push to bring stablecoins, tokenised deposits and e-money under a single framework for the first time, to the Financial Conduct Authority‘s (FCA) stance that no new rules are currently needed for agentic AI, last week raised as many questions as it answered.
Who actually benefits from a unified digital money regime if it does not arrive until 2027? Is the UK already too late to compete with the US on stablecoins? And if the FCA is leaning on Barclays, Lloyds and UBS to define good practice on AI, who is really setting the rules?
News Editor Louis Thompsett is joined by Editor Rachael Kennedy and Senior Journalist Kieran O’Connor to work through the week’s biggest announcements and what they mean in practice for the payments industry.
The conversation covers the significance of the FCA and Bank of England appearing somewhat aligned on digital money for what many are calling the first time, and what it means to group stablecoins, tokenised deposits and e-money under one roof rather than treating them as distinct regulatory problems.
The team also weighs the UK’s ambition to lead on a unified digital regime against the uncomfortable reality that the US, with the GENIUS Act advancing through Congress and dollar-backed stablecoins already commanding around 90% of the global market, is not standing still.
UK FinTech Week: are sandboxes handing too much power to industry?
The team also gets into the formal absorption of the Payment Services Regulator (PSR) into the FCA and what payments oversight loses, or gains, when its most interventionist regulator is folded into a more collaboration-oriented body.
The Bank of England’s £20,000 stablecoin holding cap and the industry pushback it has already attracted is also on the agenda, alongside the FCA’s agentic AI position and a broader debate about whether the UK’s regulatory model – centralised in ambition but increasingly industry-led in execution – is fit for the pace of change the sector is experiencing.
Episode seven of the Payment Expert Podcast is available now on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and all major podcast platforms. To make sure you don’t miss an episode, subscribe to the Payment Expert newsletter.
