In this episode of BFRR – Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n’Roll, Manuel sits down with Jochen Metzger, one of the most experienced architects of Europe’s payment and settlement landscape. After more than three decades at the Bundesbank, including 15 years as Director General Payments and Settlement Systems, Jochen reflects on the systems, decisions and harmonization efforts that helped shape the euro area’s financial plumbing as we know it today.

The conversation traces Jochen’s career from capital markets and international assignments in New York, Buenos Aires and Basel to his central role in some of the Euro system’s most important infrastructure projects. He explains how the fragmented “spaghetti model” of national RTGS systems evolved into TARGET2, why T2S became such a transformative – and difficult – project for European capital markets, and how harmonization across central banks, CSDs, CCPs and market participants required persistence, political will and technical compromise. The episode also explores the move to ISO 20022, central liquidity management, SEPA, instant payments and the broader modernization of Europe’s payment architecture.

But this episode is not only about the legacy system. It is also about what comes next. Jochen shares how his work increasingly shifted toward blockchain, digital issuance and DLT-based capital market infrastructure. He speaks about his time at NowCM, the ambition to digitize debt capital markets from issuance to execution, and his current role with Axiology, a DLT-native market infrastructure provider operating under Europe’s new regulatory framework.

What emerges is a rare perspective spanning both worlds: the legacy infrastructure that keeps Europe running today and the tokenized infrastructure that may define tomorrow. For anyone working in payments, post-trade, capital markets, digital assets or financial market infrastructure, this episode offers a masterclass in how European market structure was built – and where it may be heading next.

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