In early 2025, the RBA introduced Zepto's Chris Jewell to a delegation from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. An invitation to present at the Fed's Chicago Payments Symposium quickly followed.
I’ve just returned from the 25th annual Chicago Payments Symposium, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. It was a privilege to speak on the Instant Payments panel alongside leaders from the FedNow Service, Deloitte Consulting, BNY, and 1st Source Bank. For a payments nerd like me, two days immersed in a deep, rigorous, global dialogue — the kind where a single panel runs for over an hour — felt like Christmas.
Further, representing Zepto — and unofficially representing and advocating for Australia’s brilliant real-time payments ecosystem on a global stage — was a huge source of pride for me. From humble origins in Byron Bay not too many years ago, to being invited to bring our expertise and point-of-view to a global audience is mind-blowing and a credit to our team and what we’re building.
The Symposium is one of the world's premier forums for exploring the evolution of the payments ecosystem, and the conversations revealed both fascinating similarities and differences between global markets. But a real highlight, and what I believe is the most critical lesson for our industry today, came from a fascinating opening keynote by Thomas Koulopoulos.
The AT&T Paradox
Professor Koulopoulos presented a piece of marketing history: AT&T’s 1993 ‘You Will’ advertising campaign.
Even though I doubt anyone ever actually sent a fax from the beach, these ads were prescient. With an irresistible Tom Selleck voiceover, they posed curious questions. "Have you ever borrowed a book from thousands of miles away?" the first ad asks. Each ad in the campaign presented a similar futuristic scenario or technology — like mobile video calls, in-car GPS, online shopping, and remote work — and asked "Have you ever..." before signing off with "...you will. And the company that will bring it to you: AT&T."
It's a brilliant campaign which I challenge you not to love.
As Koulopoulos pointed out, the campaign was remarkably accurate in predicting the next few decades of technology. Yet, as many have pointed out over the years since, AT&T failed to be the company that delivered most of it.
The Professor’s follow-up was jarring: “Can you believe that a company could so accurately predict the future, and yet execute so poorly against that?”
This is the trillion-dollar question for the payments industry right now. It reminds us that vision is cheap, but execution is the ultimate currency.
The Big Topics of Tomorrow
Elsewhere, too, the Symposium’s sessions underscored just how rapidly the future is coming at us. The energy around two topics, in particular, was palpable: AI and Stablecoins.
We’re moving toward a world of ‘agentic commerce,’ where AI agents will act on a human’s behalf in financial transactions, constantly optimising outcomes and removing friction. Think about an AI automatically sourcing and executing a remortgage on your behalf based on shifting interest rates, all without you lifting a finger.
The discussion around Stablecoins was equally compelling, extending beyond their current use cases to their programmability. The ability to make a payment conditional on a set of criteria being met introduces an exciting future of automated trust and instantaneous value exchange. The historical context offered was fascinating, too—an intriguing analogy was drawn to the US banking system of the 1860s, where local banks issued their own backed notes, a concept that has modern echoes in today's stablecoin conversations.
These are not fringe ideas; they are the big topics of the moment, and they represent a future where payments are faster, smarter, and seamlessly integrated into every facet of life.
The catalysts for change
As Professor Koulopoulos pointed out, catalysts for change are not found in the habits of the past but instead in the behaviours of the future.
The greatest risk to any business pioneering this future is the AT&T Paradox: accurately predicting the what but fundamentally misinterpreting the how — the difference between successful execution and becoming a footnote in technology history.
As my Co-founder, Trevor Wistaff, often reminds me: Payments are an inherently human interaction. The flow of money is tied to emotional well-being, trust, business survival, and the simple, reliable completion of a task.
The technology enabling that — whether it's AI, stablecoins, or real-time A2A infrastructure — will likely thrive only if it augments the human experience and fosters connection, rather than replacing or complicating it.
At Zepto, we are building the real-time payments infrastructure of tomorrow. We are driven by the knowledge that building the fastest, most reliable rails is not enough. We must ensure that the programmability, intelligence, and speed we deliver translate into:
- Trust for the end-user.
- Simplicity for the developer.
- Efficiency for the business.
It is incumbent on all of us building the next generation of payments to get this right. We have an opportunity to usher in a future where financial friction is eliminated, and value flows instantly and intelligently. We can see the future of payments clearly. Now, we must focus our energy, passion and smarts on delivering it.
I owe a huge debt of thanks to Brian Mantel, Vice President, Insights & Market Development at Federal Reserve Financial Services, for the opportunity to be a part of the 25th Chicago Payments Symposium.
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