EP 414 – How Programmability Changes the Game for Payments – Kanupriya Sharda (Tazapay) and Abhishek Padhy (Aspire)

by Michael Waitze | Feb 18, 2026

Instant payments are often described as the new baseline in modern finance. But speed alone does not define progress. In many cases, “real-time” only applies within narrow limits, small transaction sizes, or pre-funded domestic rails. Cross-border flows remain constrained by liquidity requirements, fragmented standards, and compliance bottlenecks.

In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, featuring ⁠Kanupriya Sharda⁠, Chief Business Officer at ⁠Tazapay⁠ and ⁠Abhishek Padhy,⁠ Head of Product Payments and FX at ⁠Aspire⁠ we cut through the noise around “instant payments” to reveal a deeper truth: speed alone is no longer the real frontier in payments.

Some of the topics that Kanupriya and Abhishek covered in detail:

“Real-time” is often real-time only for small money and with a crucial caveat: it’s mostly true for domestic payments in parts of Asia, but it breaks down fast when you zoom out to cross-border and B2B.
Pre-funding is the hidden architecture of “instant” payments and it’s incredibly expensive.
Stablecoins aren’t just a “crypto” story, they’re a liquidity and settlement story.
The next advantage isn’t only speed, it’s certainty and transparency.
AI isn’t replacing compliance, it’s compressing time and expanding context.
The contrarian view on consolidation: payments aren’t commoditizing as fast as people claim.

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