Most conversations about improving instant payment systems focus on iteration: faster rails, lower costs, broader interoperability. This roundtable asks a more foundational question: are there aspects of how these systems are typically architected that are worth revisiting at the root, rather than only refining at the edges?

Many systems today rely on a model where a payment is sent, and if something doesn’t match up, the two sides exchange after-the-fact messages to reconcile what happened. This reconciliation-heavy approach carries real ongoing cost, and emerging approaches, including early pilot evidence, suggest that dependence on it can be reduced through pre-validation, where payment data is checked and verified before a transaction is executed. Such design choices made early in a scheme’s architecture can shape how easily it extends to full inclusion later.

This session aims to bring together development institutions, instant payments players, central banks, and relevant voices to discuss whether the iterative path – where systems are made incrementally better over time – or the fundamental path – where systems are rebuilt from the ground up – is a more viable solution for national payments systems looking to embark on pre-validation.

The roundtable aims to produce a practical roadmap for countries looking to implement prevalidation across financial institutions. Where available, early pilot data will serve as evidence, discussed frankly under the Chatham House Rule.

Project Otto has brought together more than 25 GFIN financial regulators to explore how regulatory maturity can be measured across quantum security and quantum innovation. The resulting toolkit uses a framework built around observable and measurable regulatory parameters, structured around what  regulators say, what regulators do, and how regulators engage.

The toolkit provides a snapshot of global maturity trends, highlights areas where regulators are already making progress, identifies common capability gaps, and captures lessons from regulators' experiences in supporting both quantum security and emerging quantum innovation.

This roundtable marks the launch of the Project Otto Toolkit and seeks to move the discussion from maturity assessment to practical action. Bringing together regulators and industry participants, the session will explore:

\- Which regulatory activities have the greatest influence on industry awareness, investment, and preparedness.

\- Whether a small number of regulatory actions can drive disproportionate improvements in maturity and sectoral action.

\- What actions regulators, industry participants, and international networks such as GFIN should prioritise over the next 12 months.

\- How can regulators move from measuring quantum maturity to taking practical action that strengthens regulatory capability and supports industry readiness?

While AI is creating new opportunities across financial services, its effectiveness ultimately depends on access to high-quality and trusted data. Building on emerging open data sharing initiatives across the financial sector, this roundtable will explore how financial institutions can collaborate to unlock greater value from data while preserving privacy, security, and trust. Bringing together industry leaders, technology providers, AI practitioners, and policymakers, the discussion will examine practical approaches to data sharing, privacy-enhancing technologies, common data standards, and trusted data ecosystems that can accelerate AI innovation, enable the development of more capable and reliable financial AI models, strengthen risk management, and support the next generation of AI-enabled financial services.