Payments on Fire™

As with many institutions, the European Central Bank is considering how to modernize central bank money. One way to do this is to issue a retail CBDC or central bank digital currency. This would make a digital version of central bank money available to the public. A retail CBDC would complement the physical form of widely available central bank money that we know and love today, which is physical cash or banknotes.
Many central banks around the world have been exploring a retail CBDC, and the live examples include Nigeria, China, India, and the Caribbean, specifically the Bahamas, which was the first country to issue retail CBDC, and Jamaica. The ECB has also for years been researching and exploring this topic and is preparing to issue a pilot of its retail CBDC, the digital euro, in the second half of 2027.
In this episode, Nicola Branzoli, Head of Division for the Digital Euro Regulation, Research, and Technical Support at the Banca d'Italia, joins Glenbrook's Ashley Lannquist and Simon Skinner for an in-depth exploration of the digital euro. Listen in as they cover the objectives and value proposition, design choices and pilot details, and what the digital euro means in the broader European payment context.

2026 is a milestone year for Glenbrook as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the firm. We also find ourselves airing the 300th episode of our Payments on Fire podcast - founded by George Peabody in 2014, nurtured by Yvette Bohanan, and now continued on through the hosting efforts of most of the team.  
We thought there would be no better way to mark the 12 year achievement - and pay respect to what George and Yvette built - than to revisit the journey with clips from the first 299 episodes. From early episodes on digital currency and AI, to fast payments evolution and financial inclusion efforts (and how could we leave out tokenization), listen in as Bryan Derman and Jill Wurst guide you through significant moments in the podcast's history.

Glenbrook's Chris Uriarte and Samantha Gordon continue their global payments regulation series with Scott McInnes, Partner at Bird & Bird, focusing on the European Union. 
Tune in as they explore the EU's highly regulated landscape, the challenges of inconsistent national enforcement across 27 member states, and developments on current regulatory topics:
Payment Services Directive - PSD2 to PSD3 evolution
Payment Services Regulation (PSR) objectives and adoption timeline
Digital euro goals and requirements
European Digital Identity Wallet framework and ambitions
SEPA Instant obligations
Upcoming BNPL regulation
Apple NFC access and wallet competition
Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) implications for agentic commerce

Kicking off a series of regulation-related episodes, Duncan Douglass, payments attorney and Partner at Alston & Bird LLP, joins Chris Uriarte and Samantha Gordon to turn the confusing and sometimes tedious topic of US payments regulation into an entertaining and enlightening update.
The conversation begins with who actually regulates payments in the US and how US payments oversight differs from the UK and EU, then flows into developments on current regulatory topics:
Ongoing Reg II/Durbin litigation relating to interchange
The Fed's 2023 proposed debit cap reduction
Latest preliminary approval of the Visa/Mastercard merchant settlement
Credit Card Competition Act's status
Illinois's IFPA delay, and practical challenges of state-by-state rules
Surcharging, and operational complexities across network rules and state laws
GENIUS Act stablecoin issues
Early rule questions around agentic commerce

Drew Edmond and Chris Uriarte chat with Nikhil Konduru, Chief Commercial Officer at Lithic, to discuss modern card issuing infrastructure and where the market is headed.
They break down the issuing stack and discuss issuer-side tools to improve authorization outcomes, reduce fraud and servicing costs, and increase transparency. The conversation also covers cross-border approval and economics, and explores agentic commerce via Nikhil's "Intent Toll Booth" thesis: liability drives control, issuers may demand intent data, and regulatory and network rules may need to evolve.