Against the backdrop of HCLTech’s latest research launch, Future of Payments: AI everywhere. Trust nowhere?, Sudip Lahiri, Executive Vice President & Head, Europe and UKI, Financial Services at HCLTech spoke to Sabry Salman, Managing Director, Head of FIG, Global Treasury Coverage at Barclays, about how the future of payments will impact global treasury coverage for banks and fintechs.
What role will payments play in global treasury coverage for banks and fintechs?
Salman was clear that payments are not a niche utility. Instead, they are the anchor of client problem-solving. “Payments doesn’t mean a utility or a product. It means solving problems…it will always be an anchor product for us, and it will always be related to solving something for our clients.” He linked that centrality to a long-awaited breakthrough in speed, cost and transparency, adding that what the industry has promised for a decade “is becoming a reality,” which is why he’s “really excited at the next few years ahead.”
That ambition mirrors the research signal that while leaders are leaning into AI for routing, investigations and personalization, a readiness gap persists. Only 20% of organizations report cloud-native, real-time data capabilities, leaving many treasuries striving to deliver instant, data-rich services on legacy foundations.
How will regulation and governance turn payment innovation into a superpower for banks engaging fintechs?
Lahiri framed regulation as trust infrastructure, like ensuring a “driverless car” doesn’t crash. Salman agreed and went back to first principles: banks exist for safety, advice and risk management. That ethos, he argued, must guide collaboration with fintechs. He described Barclays’ approach as a partnership, not procurement, with clear red lines, engaging CEOs directly on risk frameworks and “helping them manage that risk” rather than simply rejecting proposals.
Importantly, clarity is improving. Salman pointed to emerging rules around stablecoins and tokenization, such as MiCA, which give banks the footing to reconcile client demand with supervisory expectations. The data backs the governance imperative: 91% of executives are concerned about applying AI in payments and 99% worry about deploying AI agents; with 47% lacking formal AI policies, governance is the decisive enabler of safe innovation at scale.
What is Barclays’ view on the role of AI and stablecoins in the industry’s future?
“Banks generally view it with caution,” said Salman, “but also try and understand it at the depths required to make sure we advise our clients.” Barclays is sampling the technology, exploring limits and use cases, while keeping risk management at the core. On AI specifically, Salman was optimistic that the productivity gains and speed of insight that many feel in their personal lives are now within reach “in a safe business environment,” which could be transformative.
In the research, there is a clash between this sentiment and reality. More than half of organizations expect to operate with autonomous capabilities within 24 months (and 17% already do), yet 60% of leaders feel today’s AI fraud tools are more ineffective than effective, which is a reminder that autonomy must be paired with robust controls, explainability and continuous model governance.
The motorway moment for treasury
Treasury’s agenda is expanding from liquidity and risk to client experience, data orchestration and intelligent decisioning. As Salman put it, building modern payments is “like building a motorway.” Long-term infrastructure spend is expensive, but they enable fintechs and corporates to “drive their cars” and grow. The report underlines the stakes: 87% of leaders fear losing customers without instant capabilities, yet 81% say their real-time systems are not fully modernized, which is a classic ambition-versus-readiness paradox treasury must resolve.
From complexity to competitive advantage
The path forward is clear and urgent. Treasury leaders should treat payments as a strategic growth platform, which is rooted in client problem-solving, governed by uncompromising risk standards and powered by modern, real-time infrastructure and Responsible AI. As Salman noted, there has “never been a better time” for banks to be trusted advisors, provided they raise their own education and curiosity. For those who align ambition with governance and invest to close the infrastructure gap, the next decade will speed up payments and elevate treasury as the engine of trusted, intelligent commerce. And the data says the winners will be the ones who innovate now, govern well and modernize fast.
