At the recent Pay360 conference in London, NatWest’s Head of Payment Strategy and Research, Lee McNabb, shared his insights on the rapidly evolving payments landscape. McNabb highlighted the growing influence of digital technologies, particularly stablecoins, which he believes have “genuine, credible scale.”
He pointed to major players like PayPal and Visa as examples of how stablecoins are being increasingly embraced. A notable case was Visa’s reported collaboration with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on a stablecoin digital wallet, which McNabb sees as a potential accelerator for widespread adoption.
McNabb also discussed NatWest’s partnership with OpenAI, making it the first UK bank to do so, and emphasised the transformative impact this could have on customer experience.
On the future of digital currencies, he described what a UK Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) might look like and underscored the evolving collaboration between traditional banks and fintechs. McNabb noted that customers often interact with multiple fintech services without even realising it during basic banking activities.
Looking ahead to 2030, he predicted significant growth in account-to-account payments, AI integration, and digital currency usage, painting a future where tech and finance are more interwoven than ever.
