P. I. T. Exchange

The episode contains a coherent central thesis about federated trust frameworks replacing one-to-one trust models, with concrete explanation of how directories and trust frameworks solve scaling problems in open banking. However, much of the content involves repetition of the same core concept across different contexts (open banking, AI, cross-border payments) without introducing substantively new ideas. The guest elaborates on familiar pain points rather than revealing non-obvious insights.

“APIs gives you the instructions, the technical instructions for the two systems to talk... but then if we move into more of an ecosystem approach where it will no longer be one to one interactions, it's many to many, uh, that the scalability can be a bit uh, complicated.”

“trust doesn't really scale by shaking more hands. It should be scaling by building some infrastructure that makes handshakes uh unnecessary.”

The federated trust framework concept itself is not novel - open banking directories and PKI-based trust systems are established industry solutions. While Paulo frames it as solving EU open banking problems, he largely applies existing regulatory and technical frameworks to standard payment problems. The positioning of trust infrastructure as essential for AI agents and cross-border payments is contemporary but not deeply original thinking.

“APIs have been greatly used to push for the implementations of those schemes. But if you think about APIs, it gives you the instructions, the technical instructions for the two systems to talk.”

“in the open banking directory allowing for this dynamic client registration for example which speeds up the onboarding but also on the real time operations”

Paulo is COO of a RegTech vendor (Benfico) with relevant experience in international payments regulation and recent appointment to the European Commission's Payment Systems Expert Group, suggesting credible insider access to policy. However, he is primarily a software vendor CEO discussing his own product category rather than an operator with hands-on experience building or operating payment systems at a financial institution. His background in international politics is interesting but not directly relevant to his current role.

“I became the Chief operating officer of the group. Um, I've been driving the international growth of the company and I've been following a lot of these regulatory um, changes.”

“I've been recently appointed um, to join the Payment Systems Market Expert Group from the European Commission.”

The episode mentions specific regulatory initiatives (PSD3, PSD2, G20 agenda, GDPR) and geographic regions (Europe, UK, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, India, Africa) but provides minimal concrete data, metrics, or named case examples demonstrating the problem or solution. Paulo references qualitative outcomes like 'faster implementation' and 'better way' without numbers, timelines, cost savings, or specific client wins that would ground the claims.

“where there's um an open banking directory allowing for this M dynamic client registration for example which speeds up the onboarding”

“So PST3 the third payment service directive is coming to fix a lot of the issues that were there with the uh, OpenMac implementation, uh, that was done with PST 2”

The host Sean Ferrari asks reasonable foundational questions and attempts follow-ups, but rarely pushes back or probes deeper into claims. When Paulo makes assertions about AI risk, liability exposure, or implementation speed, the host accepts them without requesting evidence or exploring contradictions. The conversation is cordial but lacks the sharpness of challenging questions that would test the guest's reasoning or reveal gaps in the argument.

“So maybe just I know we talked about it just a little bit but stepping back um, just for everybody to understand and listen to um, in a high level kind of put simply how would you describe this federated trust framework?”

“Um, I feel like I can't get through a discussion without, you know, at least saying the word blockchain. Is this a blockchain type thing? Is it, is it not?”