Where Greece and Europe Converge to Shape the Future of Payments & RegTech
#npf
25th NextGen Payments & RegTech Forum
OUR SPEAKERS
Robert Courtneidge
Payment Industry Expert
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Robert Courtneidge is valued and respected industry expert in the emerging payments industry. He is working with a number of businesses assisting them on their strategy and products using his 30+ years legal experience to give them practical and innovative solutions. He is co-author and Editor of The PAYTECH Book 2020. He was co-founder of the Prepaid International Forum and has worked with the Emerging Payments Association since it was founded.
He has been regularly featured in the prestigious Payments Power 10 (including being ranked #1 in 2015), a highly competitive ranking of the most influential contributors in payments. As a lawyer in payments he was voted in the top 10 in the world by US publication Paybefore in 2015 being the only European in the list. As a lawyer he has worked closely with The Payments Services Regulator, HM Treasury, UK Finance and Financial Conduct Association, in the UK as well as other compliance and industry bodies globally. Robert has deep expertise in electronic money and payment services and is highly skilled in all aspects of payment services including consumer protection, banking regulation and compliance, and AML/CTF. Robert is highly active on the conference front regularly chairing and moderating events as well as speaking on issues facing the European Payments’ Industry including laws relating to blockchain, digital assets and Central Bank Digital Currencies.
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Dimitris Pierrakos
Head of Payment Systems Management Division at the Bank of Greece
Dimitris Pierrakos is the Head of the Payments Systems Management Division at the Bank of Greece, managing payment systems operations and following emerging payment technologies. As a member of European Central Bank working groups, he tracks technological developments in DLT for wholesale central bank money settlement and coordinates the Bank of Greece's participation in Eurosystem-related projects, including Project Pontes and Appia. He is also a member of the Project Steering Group on the Digital Euro, following project status, risk and deliverables across all phases of the project, including the pilot. Dimitris holds a PhD in Machine Learning from the University of Athens, combining an academic and technical background to drive his work on the future of European payments infrastructure.
Maria Mougianni
MBA, CAMS, CISI, Head of Compliance at Harbor Lab
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Maria Mougianni is Head of Compliance at Harbor Lab, an AI-powered maritime platform managing port cost, disbursement accounts (DA) and payment processing for shipping companies worldwide.
She leads Due Diligence, Sanctions and Embargoes, the AML/CFT framework, and financial crime controls, among other compliance responsibilities.
She brings over 25 years of experience across banking, fintech and maritime compliance, including nine years in senior compliance leadership.
Her career reflects direct involvement in regulatory licensing processes and supervisory relationships across multiple jurisdictions.
A Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist, she holds personal regulatory accreditations from Greek and international authorities.
Her expertise spans risk-based due diligence frameworks and AI-driven compliance automation. She focuses on how payments and RegTech firms can meet rising supervisory expectations without losing operational speed.
Valia Varzaka
Director, Deal Advisory at KPMG in GreeceLead of Third Party Risk Management at StoneX Group
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Valia Varzaka is a Director in Anti-Financial Crime Advisory Services at KPMG Greece with more than 30 years of experience in financial crime compliance, AML/CFT, sanctions and regulatory advisory. She has held senior leadership roles in major financial institutions, including serving as MLRO and Group AML/CFT Coordinator for a systemic bank. Prior to joining KPMG, she founded and led a specialist consulting firm supporting regulated entities on compliance, financial crime and licensing matters. Valia is also a member of KPMG's AMLA Office in Frankfurt, supporting organisations in preparing for the evolving European AML framework.
Aurélie Voche
Head of Project and Product Management at SysPay
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Aurélie is Head of Project and Product Management at SysPay, an MFSA-licensed electronic money institution (PCI DSS Level 1) helping merchants approve more transactions, pay less, and stay resilient. With over 15 years in payments, spanning orchestration, cross-border acceptance, tokenisation, and merchant onboarding and KYC, she leads SysPay's product delivery end to end, bridging engineering, operations, and compliance to build acceptance infrastructure that lets merchants scale while staying compliant.
Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos
Head of Compliance and Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) at Nexi Greece Payments Institution SA
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Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos is currently Head of Compliance and Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) at Nexi Greece Payments Institution SA, with almost 20 years of experience in banking, payments, and financial crime compliance. He specializes in AML/CFT, payment services regulation, and governance across the digital payments ecosystem. Nikolaos has led major regulatory initiatives, including, acquiring of new licenses and passports, AML transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and compliance frameworks for payments and banking institutions. He works closely with regulators, executive management, and technology teams to deliver risk-based compliance solutions that strengthen the financial crime detection.
Georgios Syntelis
CEO and Co-Founder at Hypodome and Loanverse
Georgios Syntelis is CEO and Co-Founder of Hypodome and Loanverse, building credit origination and credit intermediation infrastructure for European banks. Loanverse digitises the business and consumer lending journey from onboarding and KYC through to bank decisioning, and exposes it to partners as embedded lending. He was previously Chief Executive of EveryPay, the Greek payments institution, during his tenure he led an e-money licence authorisation and scaled the business from 25 to around 90 people on €1.5bn of processing volume, taking it to profitability. Before that
he worked in global markets technology at NatWest Markets in London and New York, latterly as Director in Fixted Income and Derivatives. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and London Business School, an MSc by University College London, and is an engineer by training. His interest in the digital euro, stablecoins and tokenised money is operational rather than theoretical, because credit origination ultimately has to settle, and the money layer, especially programmable money, determines which lending products are viable at the edge.
Vassiliki Lazarakou
Chair of the Hellenic Capital Market Commission
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Vassiliki Lazarakou has served as Chair of the Hellenic Capital Market Commission (HCMC) since September 2019.
She is also a Member of the Board of Supervisors of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and a Member of the Management Board of ESMA since 2020, with a term until December 2025.
Until December 2024, Vassiliki chaired the European Supervisory Authorities’ Joint Committee Securitisation Committee (JCSC).
Since October 2022, she has been a Member of the Board of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) (term until May 2026), representing the European Regional Committee (ERC). She also chairs the newly established IOSCO Diversity Network (2024).
She has been a Member of the Bureau of the Corporate Governance Committee of the OECD since November 2022.
In addition, Vassiliki was elected Vice Chair of the Mediterranean Partnership of Securities Regulators for 2025 and 2026. She is also a Member of the Women Climate Leaders Network (WCLN) of the European Investment Bank Group (EIB Group).
Vassiliki Lazarakou holds a Doctorate in Law (JSD) and an LLM in International Legal Studies from New York University School of Law, as well as a Bachelor of Law from the University of Athens, School of Law. She is admitted to both the Athens Bar and the New York Bar Association, with expertise in capital markets, M&A, privatisations, corporate and commercial law, and related areas.
She has worked for over 20 years as a Partner at several law firms, and for more than 10 years led the Banking, Capital Markets and Finance Departments of such firms. From 2012 to 2015, Vassiliki also served as First Vice-Chair of the HCMC.
Maria Tsiliakou
Head of Payments & Digital Services Compliance Sub-Division within the Group Compliance Function at the National Bank of Greece (NBG)
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Maria Tsiliakou is the Head of Payments & Digital Services Compliance Sub-Division within the Group Compliance Function at the National Bank of Greece (NBG) in Athens. She is a seasoned professional with nearly 22 years of experience at NBG. Maria specializes in banking regulation, covering multiple products and transactions, as well as the EU payment regulatory framework, EU digital laws, and GDPR compliance. Before her current role, Maria served in multiple Compliance Officer positions at NBG, dating back to July 2008, and also worked as a Retail Loan Officer. She is a Certified Compliance Officer, holds a COSO Internal Control Certificate Program certification and is Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPPE/E).
Damianos Charalampidis
Senior Advisor and Non-Executive Director
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Damianos Charalampidis is a Senior Advisor and Board Member with over 20 years of solid track record in Business Management and Operations. He has 9 years of combined Banking experience as Group Chief Operating Officer at National Bank of Greece (NBG) and a Group Chief Digital Officer at Alpha Bank, as well as 10 years at a C-level position in the Telecom industry. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, with an M.Sc in Digital Electronics and a B.Sc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
Currently, he serves as a Non-Executive Board Member at Eurobank Ltd Bank in Cyprus, and TriliaNet PI in Greece. He also advises and consults on various companies in the fields of: energy efficiency, industrial IoT, digital transformation, cyber security, SW development and payments. He has extensive corporate governance experience, having been a member of executive committees and boards of directors in Banks and various companies in the fields, telecom, IoT, e-auction, and venture capital. He is passionate about driving digital transformation and innovation and fostering a culture of agility and customer-centricity. He is also a marathon runner and a mentor for start-ups and young professionals.
George Demetriades
Director - Centralized Procurement & Management of Outsourcing Services
at Alpha Bank
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George Demetriades, born in Athens in 1964, holds an MSc in Information Systems
Management and brings over 30 years of expertise in Technology, Digital Transformation,
and Operations within major national and international financial institutions. Over the past 20
years, he has held senior leadership roles including COO, CIO, and Executive Director,
driving large-scale digitalization and IT strategy across complex, multi-market organizations.
George has founded and led IT Shared Services entities, Technology divisions, and
Operations Sectors for major financial institutions across Greece, Central and Southeastern
Europe, and the Middle East, including Barclays, Alpha Bank, Eurobank, and Qatar National
Bank. This cross-country experience has given him a deep, comparative understanding of
how technology, operations, and regulatory frameworks function across diverse jurisdictions
and banking cultures, and how to align global standards with local regulatory and operational
realities.
A core pillar of his expertise is regulatory compliance in banking technology and outsourcing,
with particular depth in the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and outsourcing
regulatory frameworks (including EBA Guidelines on Outsourcing Arrangements). George
has hands-on experience translating these regulatory requirements into practical,
operational processes within the bank, including third-party and ICT risk management
frameworks, outsourcing registers and criticality assessments, vendor due diligence and
contractual compliance, ICT incident reporting and resilience testing, and business continuity
and exit strategies for critical outsourced services. He works at the intersection of regulatory
requirements and day-to-day operations, ensuring that compliance obligations are
embedded into procurement, vendor management, and governance processes rather than
treated as a standalone exercise.
George also drives the adoption of international best-practice frameworks (ITIL, PMP, ISO)
across the organizations he leads, ensuring both institutional processes and staff
certifications keep pace with evolving standards.
He currently serves as Director of the Centralized Procurement and Outsourcing Services
Division at Alpha Bank, where he has digitalized the procurement organizational structure
through new methodologies, systems, and technologies, embedding outsourcing risk and
regulatory compliance directly into procurement operations. In early 2024, George received
the Hellenic Purchasing Institute's "Procurement Manager of the Year" award.
Konstantinos Maragkakis
EEA CEO at Paysafe Payment Solutions Ltd
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Konstantinos is a business executive with more than 17 years experience in corporate governance
and operational management in highly regulated sectors in the EU related to e-platforms and digital
businesses in-house or as consultant.
In 2018, Konstantinos was appointed as the EEA CEO of the eCash EEA business entity of the Paysafe
Group and currently, as CEO of Paysafe Payments Solutions Ltd Konstantinos is managing the Digital
Wallets, Issuing, and Acquiring division in the EEA ensuring that the Group’ attains its growth goals
successfully and in line with the broader EEA regulatory framework.
Konstantinos is managing various EEA initiatives in embedded finance as well as payments services
to create digital wallets ecosystems for merchants and consumers in crypto, games of chance, travel,
gaming etc.
Alexandros Modakis
Group Deputy AMLCO, Worldline
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Alexandros Modakis is Group Deputy AMLCO and Global Head of FCC Advisory at Worldline, providing strategic oversight of financial crime compliance across multiple jurisdictions. His expertise spans AML/CFT, sanctions, governance, enterprise-wide risk assessments, policy implementation and regulatory remediation. He brings extensive experience across payments, fintech and banking, having held both local and group-level roles at major financial institutions. Alexandros holds an MSc in Applied and Computational Mathematics, alongside professional certifications including CAMS and CGSS. His current focus is on translating the evolving European regulatory landscape—including AMLA and the EU AML package—into effective governance, controls and technology-enabled financial crime compliance frameworks.
Michael Kazakos
Head of Commercial - Cards Issuing & Merchant Acquiring at Finductive
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Michael Kazakos is a Senior Payments & FinTech Product Leader with 25+ years of international experience designing, launching and scaling innovative payment solutions across issuing, acquiring, digital banking, merchant services and fintech ecosystems.
Currently leading strategic initiatives across card issuing, merchant acquiring, cross-border payments, digital wallets, open banking and API-driven payment platforms across the EEA and UK. Experienced in defining product strategy, commercialisation, scheme integrations, operating models and go-to-market execution for banks, fintechs and regulated financial institutions.
Deep expertise spans card issuing, merchant acceptance, payment gateways, payment orchestration, embedded finance, digital wallets, open banking, tokenisation, PSD2/SCA, loyalty programmes and API-led payments. Extensive collaboration with global payment schemes including Mastercard, Visa, JCB, China UnionPay, UPI and Discover/Diners Club.
Notable achievements include delivering the ISX Pay gateway migration to Tribe Payments in just 20 days, launching Mastercard issuing programmes, and implementing Network Tokenisation, Pay-by-Bank, Mastercard Open Banking and next-generation acquiring capabilities.
Passionate about the future of payments, with a particular focus on AI-powered commerce, agentic payments, AI governance and building secure, customer-centric payment platforms that shape the next generation of digital commerce.
Georgia Mitropetrou
Co-Founder and Managing Director at Borderli
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Georgia Mitropetrou is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Borderli, a cross-border payments infrastructure company that connects national QR and instant-payment rails across Europe, Latin America and Asia, enabling wallets, banks and merchants to interoperate through a single integration.
She brings nearly two decades of practical expertise in building, commercializing and scaling payment solutions across regulated markets. Her experience includes payments orchestration, digital wallets and high-volume platforms, where she drove sales strategy, product-market fit and partnership development scaling processing beyond 50 million transactions a month and building long-term relationships with Tier-1 banks, merchants and technology providers.
Georgia combines deep product and commercial insight with hands-on experience in cross-border interoperability, complex partnership structuring and go-to-market execution offering a unique perspective at the intersection of technology, sales and regulated payments.
Athanasios Zoidis
Former CIO and Payments Technology Leader
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Athanasios Zoidis is a payments technology leader with extensive experience in financial services, payment infrastructure, cross-border transactions and digital transformation. Having previously served as Chief Information Officer in the payments sector, he has led technology operations, regulatory initiatives, business continuity programmes and the implementation of mission-critical payment systems. His work focuses on the intersection of technology, operational resilience and payment innovation, with particular expertise in remittances, B2B payments and cross-border payment flows.
Nikolaos Kolettis
Founder & CEO at EWC Investments
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Nikolaos Kolettis is the Founder & CEO of EWC Investments and Founder of the EWC Global Network, focused on digital markets research, cybersecurity, and digital economy services. His expertise spans digital assets, crypto markets, investment strategy, risk management, and the institutional evolution of digital finance. He holds a Degree and Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Crete and has completed executive education programmes with leading institutions including Columbia Business School, MIT Sloan, Wharton, Harvard Business School Online, and the CFA Institute. His insights have been featured in leading media outlets, and in 2025 he received the Crypto Investments Excellence & Leadership Award for his contribution to digital market analysis and the digital economy.
Athanassios Daflos
Head of Cash & Trade Services Business Development, Transaction Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking at Eurobank
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Regional Transaction Banking Leader driving growth and value to businesses, spearheads the commercial initiatives and frameworks that capture major payment, cash and trade flows. Over a 22-year executive career, consistently delivering measurable value, fusing financial engineering with advanced technologies like AI and Blockchain. An award-winning innovator and former CIO at Eurobank Factors, he holds an MBA, an MSc in Technology, and a BSc in Physics.
Responsible for leading Eurobank’s full transaction banking franchise across payments, cash management and trade finance, covering Premier SBs, SMEs, Corporates, Multinationals, Insurance and institutional clients.
Anestis Dimopoulos
Director, Head of Digital & Risk Advisory, Baker Tilly Southeast Europe
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Mr. Dimopoulos leads digital and risk advisory services in Baker Tilly South East Europe (Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova), based in the Athens office. Previously he served as Senior Manager with another audit & advisory firm, as well as Programme Manager and Risk Manager in insurance companies.
He joined Baker Tilly in September 2020 and has more than 24 years of experience in advisory services, in Greece, Cyprus, South East Europe and Middle East. He holds a B.Sc. from University of Piraeus and M.Sc. from Athens University of Economics & Business, with executive education from LSE (MBA Essentials) and Said Business School (Blockchain Strategy Programme). He holds multiple professional certifications (CISA, CISSP, CGEIT, CRISC, CIA), and he is an active member of ISACA and IIA associations. Throughout his career, Anestis has led engagements related to digital transformation, programme management, IT strategy and governance, operational risk management, compliance, cybersecurity, internal audit, privacy and data protection in multiple industries, especially in financial services, telecom and energy sectors.