Lightspeed Designing the Future of Payments Systems | Konstantin Richter & Tom Zschach
Mar 26, 2026
Konstantin Richter, founder and CEO of Blockdaemon, builds crypto infrastructure for institutions. Tom Zschach, Chief Innovation Officer at SWIFT, focuses on integrating digital assets into global banking. They discuss agentic payments and machine accountability. They examine regulation gaps and whether on‑chain rails will interconnect with legacy systems. Conversation centers on systems design for future payments.
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SWIFT Is A Messaging Trust Fabric
- SWIFT is a global messaging trust fabric, not a custodian or settlement layer, used by over 11,500 banks in 200 countries.
- Tom Zschach explained SWIFT doesn't issue tokens or hold value but connects institutions and standards across jurisdictions.
Agentic Payments Are Algorithmic Evolution
- Agentic payments mean algorithms making payment decisions instead of humans, akin to long-standing algorithmic trading.
- Tom Zschach said institutional automation for cross-border payments will take time but will accelerate treasury, hedging, and liquidity functions.
Programmable Containers Enable Machine-Scale Compliance
- Programmable tokens need embedded metadata for compliance and execution, like a digital shipping container with manifest and sealed rules.
- Tom Zschach argued checks must happen at execution time to scale from thousands to millions of transactions.