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Rishi Raithatha
OUR SPEAKERS
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Rishi Raithatha

Director, Data & Insights - Mobile Money at GSMA

 

Rishi Raithatha is a financial sector specialist, focusing on mobile money, microinsurance and disaster risk financing in low- and middle-income countries. 

His recent experience spans senior roles at the GSMA, the mobile industry’s trade association, and Pula Advisors, an insurtech that provides insurance to smallholder farmers. He has also worked as a consultant for the World Bank. Rishi's previous experience includes roles at McKinsey, Willis Towers Watson and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Rishi has a BA from SOAS, University of London, and an MA from the University of Groningen. In 2020, he became a Certified Digital Financial Practitioner. An experienced writer, he also runs a bespoke business writing workshop for individuals and companies.

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Lee Clifton

Global Head of Payments Performance and Strategy at Stripe

 

Lee is an executive leader in the payments industry, with an unwavering passion for eCommerce. Throughout his career, he has successfully managed and developed multiple teams, nurturing talent supporting their growth and career aspirations. He inspires and empowers other leaders to achieve their goals. His solutions-focused mindset, coupled with his proven ability to collaborate with C-Suite, drives positive change and achieves organisational success. Lee is a fierce negotiator with exceptional entrepreneurial skills and a keen business sense. As a frequent global traveler, he had the opportunity to meet with some of the largest eCommerce merchants and hone my expertise in this dynamic industry.

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John Mowat

Head of Strategic Policy at Pay.UK 

John is head of Strategic Policy at Pay.UK, which operates the UK’s interbank payment systems – Bacs, FPS and ICS. Pay.UK also deliver a variety of services relating to payments, such as the Current Account Switch Service, Confirmation of Payee and Request to Pay. John previously held roles at the CMA, HM Treasury and the PSR. Before entering the splendid world of payments, competition and regulation he managed European equity funds, with a focus on activism and restructuring. He began his career in corporate restructuring at KPMG.

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Jovi Overo

Managing Director at Unlimit BaaS

Jovi Overo has over 20 years of experience across Fintech, Payments, Banking and Lending-as-a-Service space. Currently, Overo serves as Unlimit's BaaS division's Managing Director and is responsible for conceptualising and establishing innovative BaaS solutions from inception to fruition, spearheading the expansion of this new product for the company.

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Neelu Agarwal

PRA Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Bank of England

 

Neelu brings16 years of dynamic experience across multiple regulatory and enterprisse wide transformation projects. She is currently incharge of influencing and overseeing the delivery of the inclusion, diversity, equity  strategic priority at the Prudential Regulation Authority, Bank of England, role she describes as the most fulfulling and rewarding one.

She is also a board member at Second Step mental health charity and a mother to a four year old son.  Hailing from India, she enjoys the best of both the worlds. Neelu's personal interest lies in motivational speaking and Bollywood dance.

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Max Lehmann

Senior Vice President at Nium 

 

Max is a true fintech trailblazer with over 15 years' experience scaling digital banking and payments companies. In his current role at cross-border payments leader Nium, Max is responsible for growing its marketplace, enterprise, and travel segments globally. In his spare time, Max enjoys investing in pre-seed and seed stage companies as an A16z scout, sharing his expertise scaling some of Europe’s leading payments businesses from the inside, including Adyen, Boku, and now Nium.

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Francis Gross

Senior Advisor, Directorate General Statistics at European Central Bank

 

Francis’ work pursues one goal: effective measurement of the economic and financial system as technology keeps growing exponentially, a necessary condition for control and stability – name it “sustainable digitalisation”. 

He focuses on two interfaces: (1) globally integrated, fast, tightly coupled economic system vs. fragmented, slow regulatory system, (2) “real” world vs. data world, the core of digitalisation. His method: (1) identify constraints and specifications for effective measurement dictated by technology, (2) develop conceptual systemic design that can work and (3) propose migration paths and concrete, feasible measures with transformational power that can deliver.

Proposals include a global, public-good, digital infrastructure (possibly managed by a new, technical, international institution) making the system adequately measurable, safer, and more efficient, building on the Global LEI System as a first step. 

2006 Francis initiated the movement that led to the G20-backed Global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) System, where he served on the Regulatory Oversight Committee. Before joining the ECB in 2001, Francis spent fifteen years in automotive, eight at Mercedes, working on globalisation. 

He holds an engineering degree from École Centrale, Paris, and an MBA from Henley Management College, UK

In his free time, Francis coaches athletes for javelin throwing, including the former World and current European champion in the decathlon.

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William Derban

Head, Programs and Partnerships, Digital Innovations Group at Opportunity International

 

Dr. William Derban serves as the Head of Progams and Partnerships, for Opportunity International’s Digital Innovations Group. In this role, he defines technical standards, develops business strategy, and negotiates collaborations across mobile money, mobile/cell-phone banking, and agent banking. Dr. Derban is also the convener and co-founder of the Financial Inclusion Forum Africa, a network of professionals passionate about promoting financial inclusion across the African continent.

Before joining Opportunity International, Dr. Derban worked in the financial sector for over 20 years. He served as the Market Engagement Director for the Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation program at the GSMA. Prior to that, he held positions such as Director for Strategic Partnerships and Digital Banking at Fidelity Bank Ghana and Head of Community Investment for Barclays Bank, responsible for Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Dr. Derban is an influential speaker on development and financial inclusion. He resides in London with his wife and three children. As the Head, Programs and Partnerships, Dr. Derban oversees strategy, implementation, and partnerships in digital innovation across Opportunity International’s operations worldwide.

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Josephine Roy

Global Head of Regulatory Developments and Engagements for Payments at J.P. Morgan 

Jo is currently the Global Head of Regulatory Developments and Engagements for Payments at JP Morgan. She has over 20 years experience in management and strategy execution across multiple fields in the financial services sector where she has held numerous leadership roles.  Her areas of focus includes Regulatory Strategy, GRC

(Governance, Risk and Compliance) and Sustainability. She is an alumni of Bayes Business School and holds a certification on Sustainable Finance from the University of Cambridge.

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Mark Ledsham

COO at Visa Direct

Mark is a business leader who combines strong operational skills with financial acumen. In his own words he is a customer maniac and believes in the power of diverse multi- disciplined teams to drive customer focussed outcomes. Currently he is driving the underlying compliance and payment infrastructure build in Visa Direct as the business continues to grow internationally. He is a veteran business leader across financial services and technology, Mark joined Currencycloud from XE.com where he was CEO. Prior to joining XE.com, Mark held senior roles at international payment Fintech OFX, and financial services conglomerate Macquarie Group

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Eva Taleva-Borislavova

CEO at Remitly Europe Limited 

Eva is the CEO of Remitly Europe Limited, a global leader in digital cross-border remittances. Leading the regional strategy and business performance, Eva’s key priorities focus on driving the overall sustainable growth of the business, leading a high performing executive management team, maintaining strong customer centricity across all business operations, and building Remitly Europe's regulatory compliance position within the financial services industry. Eva is accredited as PCF 1 & 8 (Executive Director and Chief Executive) by the Central Bank of Ireland and is an Executive Director on Remitly Europe’s Board of Directors. With over 14 years of experience across the fintech/financial services industry, Eva is passionate about payments, financial inclusion, and sustainable innovation. 

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Tom Salmond

Partner, Financial Crime & Forensics, EMEIA Financial Services Consulting at Ernst & Young LLP

Tom is a Partner in EY’s Financial Services Consulting practice where he helps clients to improve their financial crime controls to reduce the harm financial crime causes to society. He helps firms grow by optimising controls, leveraging new technologies and enabling effective operations. He has over twenty years’ experience within financial services at industry level, within payments, banking and consultancy, leading multi-disciplinary teams to undertake regulatory assessments (inc. s166 reviews) and improve management of financial crime risk through human-centred systems. Prior to EY, he worked at Barclays within Group Financial Crime and at APACS (now part of UK Finance), where he led industry work on eCrime, fraud & security. He meets regularly with regulators, industry bodies and think tanks.

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Mick McAteer

Co-Director at Financial Inclusion Centre

 

Mick McAteer is an experienced advocate for economic and social justice. His work focuses on three areas: economic and social justice and rights; financial system reform; and the role of technology and data in society, particularly on how finance/ data/ technology intersects. 

He is founder and Co-Director of The Financial Inclusion Centre, a UK not-for-profit policy and research group. The Centre’s mission is to promote a financial system and markets that works for the environment, real economy, and society. He is a director of Action for Financial Inclusion (AfFI), a community interest company set up to turn policy ideas for promoting financial inclusion into action. 

He is Chair of non-profit Registry Trust which operates the Register of Judgments for the Ministry of Justice, and a board member of the Irish Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. He is a member of the UK Regulators Network (UKRN) Expert Panel and the Bank of England’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Engagement Forum. 

Previously, he was Chair of the anti-poverty charity Z2K, and Deputy Chair of the Consumer Council of Northern Ireland. He was a board member of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)/ Financial Services Authority (FSA), chaired the FCA’s External Risk and Strategy Committee and was on the FSA Oversight Committee that implemented the split of the FSA into the FCA and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). 

At EU level, he was Chair of the European Commission’s Financial Services User Group (FSUG) which advises the European Commission and other EU policymakers on matters relating to financial markets and affecting financial users.

He was with Which? (the UK’s most influential consumer group and largest consumer group in Europe) for 13 years and formulated the organisation’s policy on financial services. He led the work on exposing major scandals such as pensions, mortgage endowment and PPI mis-selling, and work on reform of pensions, insurance, and banking industries. Prior to this, he worked for five years for two major fund management firms in the City of London.

He was a board member of the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) Professional Oversight Board, a non-executive director of The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS), and a board member of ShareAction (the movement for Responsible Investment), and board member of CARITAS (Westminster).

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Sarah Sinclair

CEO & Co-Founder of Change Gap and Co-Labs

Sarah is a highly entrepreneurial, commercially astute and trusted senior change operator with over 30 years of diverse experience mainly but not limited to the financial services sector.  She is applying her technology background and ability to turnaround the impossible, closing Gaps in risk and regulatory compliance, across the industry but through partnerships and common frameworks.

Working with diverse clients and multi-disciplinary teams, Sarah still specialises in blending common frameworks with an ‘uncommon’ sense of what makes the difference in situations where complex change is struggling to get ‘over the line’.

Through Change Gap and Co-Labs, which was created as a specific collaboration initiative to solve global industry challenges in risk and regulation, Sarah is a frequent speaker and influencer in the areas of regulation, FinTech, RegTech and other technology used to solve problems for financial services.

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Luciana Mosoia

General Manager, Enterprise FX and Cross-Border Solutions at Visa

Luciana serves as the General Manager of Visa’s Enterprise FX, Settlement, and Cross-Border Solutions business. Her role involves guiding her team to develop and market a broad range of integrated cross-border solutions that include FX, settlement solutions, and virtual and multicurrency accounts for carded and account-based money movement as we seek to meet the growing and increasingly diversified needs of clients moving funds around the world. She works closely with client-facing and product teams in each of Visa’s regions and is passionate about broadening access to seamless cross-border payment solutions to drive inclusivity and growth around the world. 

Luciana brings more than 20 years of industry experience in cross border payments and global commerce, global strategy and product management transformation, with a proven track record of launching and scaling cross border solutions creating new business models and driving strategic transformation within large global financial institutions and start-ups. Prior to her current role at Visa, Luciana has held multiple leadership positions including GM for Visa Cross-Border Solutions in EMEA which included the recently acquired Currencycloud business, and Head of Product and Commercialization Treasury as a Service. She has led the development and launch of several transformational FX and settlement capabilities, built and managed Visa’s commercial partnership with Currencycloud pre-acquisition and was instrumental in driving its acquisition by Visa and subsequent integration. Additionally, Luciana has served in management positions at Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and IdentityMind Global, a regulatory technology startup. She started her career in management consulting with a focus on international trade and doing business in developing economies. 

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Kent Mackenzie

Partner & RegTech Leader at Deloitte

Kent is responsible for Deloitte’s Digital Compliance Platform and business, operating across EMEA and the US.  The platform delivers automated and intelligent compliance management to a number of Tier 1 FS organisations in payments and banking, and is also used by a number of global Health and Life Science and Tech businesses to scan, detect, curate and management the impact of 100s of regulatory obligations.  Having spent 20 years working in compliance, regulation and technology Kent has built a complete understanding of what it takes to truly digitise this environment and drive benefits that go beyond creating simple efficiencies.  Most recently Kent has taken on leadership of GenAI in this space, looking at how the next generation of solutions can be safely and effectively GenAI-enabled.

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Dave Malley

Payment Industry Engagement Lead at NatWest

A long time payments specialist, Dave is Payment Industry Engagement lead in NatWest’s Payments Centre of Expertise.

As a member of various industry groups in the past (Bacs, LINK) and currently EBA, he is a firm believer in the need for industry collaboration in non-competitive areas to support innovative payments development.

Among the many current industry challenges, he sees putting Instant Payments and Open Banking on a sustainable commercial footing as priority areas.

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Leven Li

Chief Compliance Officer at ANNA Money

Leven Li is the Chief Compliance Officer at ANNA Money, leading the compliance in developing AI and LLM-driven agile regtech solutions that aims to provide seamless customer experiences while adhering to regulatory requirements and minimising financial crime risks. Leven began her compliance career at Amazon Payment, and after a key team member and MLRO at Railsr, and secured Crypto.com licenses in the UK as Compliance Director. With expertise in regulatory licensing and building financial crime control frameworks, Leven is passionate about leveraging technology and AI to enhance compliance frameworks and solutions.

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Elise Soucie

Executive Director of Global Digital Finance

Elise is the Director of Global Policy & Regulatory Affairs for Global Digital Finance.

Elise was formerly an Associate Director at the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) where she lead the division’s Digital Assets and Data Strategy work, with a focus on emerging regulation such as the Market in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislation and the European Commission’s targeted consultation on open finance and data sharing in the financial sector. Furthermore, she also worked closely with global standard setters, driving and guiding engagement between the capital markets industry and bodies such as the FSB and IOSCO.

Prior to her work at AFME, Elise was in the public sector, working at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in both their Technology, Resilience and Cyber Division and International Division. Notably she pioneered the FCA’s International Digital Assets strategy in 2022 and led technical policy dialogue on DLT, Consumer Risks, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC’s), and Decentralised Finance (DeFi), among other topics.

Elise was named ‘Next Generation Leader of the Year’ at the 2022 Women in Finance Awards UK.

Elise’s experience with both the public and private sector enables her to support members in their engagement with policy makers around the globe. She has experience in both drafting and advocating for regulatory outcomes that will support the development of the digital assets ecosystem, and her technical understanding of the industry makes her well suited to represent the membership of Global Digital Finance.

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Chastity Murphy

Senior Advisor for Financial Institutions at the US Treasury Dept

 

Chastity is a Senior Advisor for Financial Institutions, managing the cryptocurrency, digital assets, consumer protections, and financial inclusion portfolios. Chastity was previously a senior economic policy advisor for Representative Rashida Tlaib, pioneering legislation on e-cash, stablecoins and digital assets. As a policy advisor, she managed Tlaib’s Financial Services Committee and worked on anti-austerity, financial reform, racial equity, and financial inclusion policies. Chastity also worked with Representative Marcia Fudge as a legislative aide. Chastity has also been a cooperative education student and analyst at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. In 2020, Chastity was featured in the Forbes article “Women of Color Hill Staffers Talk New Economic Policy Making, Digital Cash Without Blockchain.” Chastity lives in Washington, D.C., and has a political science and economics B.A. from South Carolina State University.

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Chris Pond

Chair at Financial Inclusion Commission

Chris Pond is Chair of the independent Financial Inclusion Commission, made up of policy experts, business and consumer representatives and parliamentarians from each of the main political parties.  He is also chair of TrustMark and of Cape Claims Services, consumer counsellor to the Equity Release Council and Trustee of the Money and Mental Health Policy Unit.  He was previously chair of the Lending Standards Board, Independent Director at the Current Account Switch Service, member of the Treasury FinTech Delivery Panel, Director of Financial Capability at the Financial Services Authority and CEO of Gingerbread, the National Council of One Parent Families.  Chris was Member of Parliament for Gravesham between 1997 and 2005, serving as a Treasury Parliamentary Private Secretary and as Work and Pensions minister.

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Alison Donnelly

Director at fscom

Alison is a payments policy expert with in-depth knowledge and understanding of the payments regulatory landscape.

She is a former FSA/FCA e-money policy specialist and shares this insight from the regulator to clients and contacts alike in her role as Director in fscom providing compliance advice to leading fintech companies and start ups.

Alison is Leader of the Payment Association’s (PA’s) Project Regulator which aims to engage with regulatory bodies to promote and champion the concerns of PA members in current and future regulation, and drives change through the development of a fairer regulatory landscape for payments companies. 

Alison is also on the Board of Directors of the Association of Professional Compliance Consultant (APCC), is the European Women in Payments Network (EWPN) Ambassador for Ireland and an Ambassador for the Fintech Corridor, which promotes fintech in the corridor between Belfast and Dublin.

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Bobby Spasov

Director, Risk and Compliance & MLRO at Payhawk

Bobby Spasov is a seasoned Risk and Compliance professional with 10 years of experience in the Payments and E-Money industry. His expertise is in building Risk and Compliance programs and teams for scaling Fintechs with focus on Regulatory and Financial Crime Compliance. He has experience working with regulators in the UK, US, Europe, Australia, Canada and Singapore.

Outside of his work he takes active interest in technology, traveling and Formula 1.

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Paul Bedford

Senior Manager, Strategy & Policy Development Payments Strategy Division at Bank of England

Paul Bedford is a Senior Manager in the Bank of England’s Payments Directorate.  His current responsibilities include helping to set the BoE’s strategy for its operation of the UK RTGS platform and CHAPS high-value payment system as well as shaping domestic and international payments policy initiatives, including the G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-Border Payments.  Paul has been with the BoE for over twenty years, with more than half of that time in payments-related roles from regulatory as well as operational perspectives.  Earlier in his career, Paul spent working time in New Zealand and contributed extensively to the regulatory response to the global financial crisis in the late 2000s.

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Nicole Coates

Senior Manager, Supervision at Payment Systems Regulator

Nicole has been with the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) since 2017, joining the Supervision and Compliance Monitoring team in October 2023 as Senior Manager, Supervision. Our new supervision team aims to work towards better outcomes in payments through building effective relationships with key stakeholders in the UK's regulated payment systems. We’re building our team and our approach now. Before she took up the role in Supervision, Nicole was involved in a wide variety of the PSR’s policy work as a Technical Specialist in payments, including our Strategy, our work on Open Banking and account to account payments and advising on a major competition investigation. Nicole worked in change management for Citigroup before joining the PSR.

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Helene Oger-Zaher

Senior Manager of Innovation Department at Financial Conduct Authority

Helene is an innovation and payment specialist. She has extensive regulatory experience in the UK and internationally.

She joined the FCA in June 2019 and is a senior manager in the innovation department aiming to support beneficial and responsible innovation in the financial services sector, including through our different sandboxes, innovation pathways and sprints. She also led policy on payments matters, including open banking, fraud and crypto.  

Before joining the FCA, she worked at the European Banking Authority, where she developed a number of instruments in the payments space and led the supervisory work with all EU national competent authorities. Prior to that, she worked at the FSA/FCA in a range of roles ranging from supervision to competition and in the industry in compliance roles.

She holds a PhD in law.

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Cathal McElroy

Reporter for S&P Global Market Intelligence's European Financial Institutions

Cathal McElroy is a reporter for S&P Global Market Intelligence's European Financial Institutions team. His coverage encompasses the listed European banking sector, with a particular focus on the French and Spanish markets. Cathal has 15 years' experience as a journalist, almost all of which has been spent writing about businesses across a range of sectors. His first job in journalism was with the BBC, before moving to the Middle East where he reported on the region's construction industry. He then spent two years as editor of Bloomberg Businessweek's Middle East edition, devoting significant coverage to the region's burgeoning banking sector. Cathal joined S&P Global in 2016 when he moved back to the UK to return to his passion for writing, taking a role as a reporter on the European real estate sector. He transferred to his current position on the European FIG team in March 2021.

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Fabian Meyer

Managing Partner at CORE SE

Fabian Meyer is Managing Director in Switzerland and a member of the board of CORE SE - a European technology think tank based in Berlin. As an expert in payment services and FinTechs, he is responsible for large projects with renowned clients in the financial sector in the DACH region and the United Arab Emirates. He has several years of consulting experience in the banking sector and in transformation engineering.

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Jonny Fry

Group Head of Digital Assets Strategy at ClearBank

Jonny Fry is Group Head of Digital Assets Strategy for ClearBank Ltd, established in 2015 becoming the first bank in over 250 years to be regulated as a clearing bank in the UK. Jonny is also CEO of TeamBlockchain Ltd as research and publishing firm that produces Digital Bytes, a weekly analysis focused on the commercial opportunity of using blockchain technology and digital assets. He is a NED of TURN, a blockchain-powered reporting platform for the asset management industry and is an advisor to a number of other firms. Jonny is Chairman at Gemini Capital UK,  which owns a Dublin based fund administration platform where he is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. For over 20 years Jonny was CEO of Premier Asset Management Plc, a London Stock Exchange-listed asset management company.

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David Messenger

Chief Executive Officer of Global Businesses at PingPong

 

David Messenger is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Businesses for PingPong, a leading global provider of embedded finance solutions for financial institutions, fintechs, corporates and technology platforms with cross-border payment needs. Founded in New York in 2015 and with 32 offices around the world, PingPong has processed more than $200 billion USD in cross-border payments, supporting over 1 million enterprises of all sizes. David leads PingPong’s efforts to build comprehensive payment solutions for the most innovative and dynamic enterprises and mid-market companies expanding internationally.

David has more than two decades of senior management experience in technology-focused companies across the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Southeast Asia. He has helped reshape the global payment landscape through executive roles at LianLian, American Express and Virgin Mobile. David is also a successful entrepreneur, having founded Nuna Network (acquired by LianLian) and Mast Mobile (acquired by Hearsay Systems).

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Nikhil Asthana

Head of Data, RegTech and Digital at Grant Thornton

Nikhil leads our Data, RegTech and Digital practice with over 20 years of experience focused on data, regulation, transformation, automation and innovation. His career includes senior roles at Barclays and Deutsche Bank in COO and CDO offices.

Nikhil’s varied experience includes setting up Data Management,  Regulatory assurance and Innovation hub functions as well as delivering complex data, regulatory and change agendas, including critical data programmes, data governance frameworks, data lineage, regulatory change, KYC and remediation programmes.

Prior to joining Grant Thornton Nikhil led Data Management and RegTech at a major bank responsible for establishing and leading their Chief Data Office Data Governance, Data Management and Lineage function across retail, business banking, cards, and wealth businesses. He also held additional responsibilities for large change programmes including Bank of England Data Collection, Data Issues Transformation, FCA Digital Regulatory Reporting,  and KYC refresh.

More recently, Nikhil has led many consulting, advisory and assurance assignments for financial services clients. This includes frameworks for Data Strategy and Maturity Assessments, AI Assurance, Data Governance, Data Analytics, Automation and RegTech engagements.

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Rich Wagner

CEO at Zempler Bank

Rich Wagner is CEO and founder of Cashplus Bank, a leading UK fintech challenger, and has over 30 years of experience in payments and banking, including executive roles at Visa, Barclaycard and Providian.

Cashplus was authorised as a UK bank in February 2021 building on its history of fintech and lending innovation and was awarded a BCR Capability and Innovation Fund grant in September 2021 in order to build out its range of smart, simple SME banking and lending products.

Outside of his work at Cashplus, Rich has been an active and vocal industry advocate, is currently a member of the UK Finance Payments Board and earlier played a key role in gaining fair access to UK payments systems for non-banks.

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Robert Courtneidge

Payment Industry Expert

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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Andrew Doukanaris

Chief Executive Officer at Flotta Consulting Ltd

 

Andrew has been at the heart of the digital payments transformation for almost three decades, holding senior roles in issuing and acquiring with Chevron/Texaco, Visa Inc., JCB Cards, and a Mastercard advisor in The Middle East - During which time has been based in Singapore, San Francisco, New York and London. 

He is a Fintech mentor/board advisor at Level39 in London and the former CEO and Chairman of multinational QR code payments Pomelo Pay. In January 2022, Andrew was appointed CEO of Blukite Network - an Open Banking network with revolutionary patented technology.

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Sulabh Agarwal

MD, Global Head of Payments at Accenture

 

As our global lead for Payments, Sulabh helps financial institutions and other organizations across the world navigate the shifting payments landscape, combat lost payments revenue, and control and mitigate operational risk throughout the payments value chain. Throughout his career, Sulabh has directed numerous client engagements ranging from defining strategy through to systems integration and implementation. Prior to Accenture, Sulabh worked for Capital One in the cards business. Outside of work, Sulabh likes to spend time with his wife and three kids. He is an engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology and has an MBA from INSEAD.

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Ishtiaq M Ahmed

Senior Manager – Innovation & Ventures at HSBC

 

Embark on an inspiring journey with Ishtiaq, a futures-thinking advocate reshaping financial services. With a keen focus on strategy, transformation, and innovation within HSBC's Wealth and Personal Banking, Ishtiaq's global insights, cultivated across three continents and 30 countries, bring a unique perspective to his narrative. Revealing a tapestry woven with culinary finesse and the genuine bonds of cherished connections, Ishtiaq's story is a testament to triumph over adversity—a living testament of resilient vision.

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Victoria Shulga

Senior Legal Council at TransferGo

 

Victoria has over 8 years of experience practising finance and banking law and is a Chief Legal Council and a leader of the legal team at TransferGo Ltd. – one of the pioneers of international money transfers. She has an in-depth knowledge of the key developments and factors affecting the legal side of the fintech industry, including global compliance, emerging IT technologies, cybercrime, investor financing, deals structuring, etc. Before joining TransferGo, Victoria worked on various projects in major UK and international banks and professional services companies: Citibank, Lloyds, Barclays, and Clifford Chance. She has brought her expertise in traditional banking and finance to the field of fast-paced technological and business innovation of the fintech disruptors.

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Willem Wellinghoff

Chief Compliance Officer at Ecommpay

 

Having joined Ecommpay in 2023, Willem is the Chief Compliance Officer for Ecommpay, and executive director responsible for the compliance, legal and risk strategy of the business.

He is also the founder of Finseco, a boutique advisory service for startups and growth-stage companies in the FinTech and RegTech space. Prior to Ecommpay, Willem was one of the co-founding members of Shieldpay, VP Compliance for LendInvest, and Group Head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs for Cabot Credit Management.

Willem has also been a special advisor to the Board of the Credit Services Association (CSA) in connection with consumer credit and debt collection regulation representing the trade association in driving change and working with regulators like the FCA, ICO, OFCOM and the Law Commission.

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Gary Palmer

President, CEO & Chairman at Payall Payment Systems

 

Gary’s the founder and CEO of Payall Payment Systems – the company has built first-ever end-to-end infrastructure for the cross-border ecosystem with breakthrough software for originating institutions, central banks, payment networks and operators, currency traders and liquidity providers as well as clearing institutions and correspondent banks.  Capabilities have transformed this high-risk, opaque and inefficient $160 T payment category into a safe, efficient (fast and low cost), transparent and inclusive product that any bank, financial institution, EMI, PI or other regulated entity can offer that’s safe, profitable and delights customers. 

Gary’s career in banktech, regtech and Fintech began in 1996 when he co-founded WildCard Systems, the first-ever purpose-built Visa and Mastercard prepaid card issuing platform and some have called the “first Fintech”.  WildCard pioneered public APIs to integrate with non-issuers in support of alternative distribution channels for consumer, business and government-funded cards.  EFunds acquired WildCard Systems in 2005 for $262 million. 

After the sale to Efunds Gary was EVP of global strategic business development, reporting to the Chairman and CEO.  Gary was on the executive team that sold Efunds to Fidelity National Information Services (NYSE: FIS) for $1.8 billion in 2007 – double the value of Efunds from the WildCard purchase. 

Gary also co-founded and provided funding to Adaptive Payments in 2010 which pioneered 24x7 real-time payments between banks across the PIN debit or EFT networks. Mastercard acquired Adaptive Payments in 2015 and the company’s tech became the foundation for Mastercard Send. 

In 2010 Gary received the prestigious Prepaid Industry Achievement Award and he’s an inventor (U.S. patent 9,183,549 issued Nov 10, 2015) for a system and method of secure payment transactions.

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Petru Metzger

President, Payments at Blankfactor 

Petru leads Blankfactor’s Payments business globally. He has over a decade of experience in the industry - in his previous role, Petru oversaw the global payments business unit of one of the world’s largest IT services companies. His leadership guided over 13,000 people in delivering services to more than 100 payments clients in the United States and Europe. He is based in London.

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Sylwia Masłowska

Head of Business Development at 10Clouds

 

Meet Sylwia, the driving force behind 10Clouds’ business strategy in software development for Finance, FinTech, and Banking. With 15 years of experience, Sylwia has held pivotal roles that showcase her expertise. As the Consulting Director of Finance at Netguru, she spearheaded initiatives to enhance financial solutions, leveraging technology to optimize financial operations.
At the London Stock Exchange, she served as the Operations Team Leader, where she streamlined market operations, improving efficiency and reliability. Her role at Wealtharc saw her tailoring customer experiences on a wealth management platform, ensuring that client needs were met with precision and care. At BNP Paribas, Sylwia specialized in investment funds, managing complex financial products and services.
Sylwia's extensive background in both finance and technology positions her as a leading expert on the intersection of these fields. Her knowledge of the industry and emerging tech solutions provides a roadmap for the future of finance.
Off-duty, Sylwia is an avid stand-up paddler, having toured Europe with her SUP board, reflecting her adventurous spirit and dedication to exploring new horizons.

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Tony Craddock

Director General at Payments Association

Enthusiastic leader of the world’s most influential trade association in payments, a lively public speaker and avid networker, Tony is passionate about payments and the difference it can make to lives everywhere.

Tony shares his knowledge derived from 20 years in payments and his evangelical zeal for innovation when speaking and chairing conferences, publishing books and white papers, or enrolling payments leaders to join The Payment Association’s collaboration network.

Tony frequently invests in early-stage payments companies, helping them to win in a highly competitive payments ecosystem. He founded The Payments Association in 2010 to promote the UK as global hub for payments innovation and the interests of its 250+ members in the UK, EU and Asia, which include banks, card schemes, PSPs, issuers, processors, acquirers and legal experts, who all come together to drive collective industry change.

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Jane Jee

Director at Jee Associates Limited

Jane is Company Secretary at a data analytics company – Numitor Limited, a consultant at Risk Alert 247 Ltd – a company which analyses Companies House data to enable AML regulated entities to better assess risk.

Jane leads the anti-financial crime initiative at Co-Labs Global Limited and she is also the Lead at the Payments Association’s Financial Crime Working Group. 

After qualifying as a barrister, Jane gained broad experience in the payments industry. She was Managing Director at Access (credit cards) and then Divisional Manager at Mondex International (e-money) . Jane has undertaken a broad range of legal and compliance work for a variety of companies - including internet payment gateways - WorldPay plc and Trust Payments, mobile phone payment companies, e-money issuers, pre-paid card companies and money transmitters.

Jane holds an International Compliance Association (ICA) Post Graduate Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance and is an ICA Fellow. Jane was CEO and co-founder at Kompli-Global. which offered SaaS to defeat fraud and money laundering.

Jane is a long-term advocate of the use of technology (RegTech) in addition to human judgement to defeat Financial crime.

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Luis Parra

Director, Head of RegTech Solutions at Complyport, part of ComplyMAP Group

Luis is Director, Head of RegTech solutions at Complyport, part of ComplyMAP Group. He is focused on simplifying clients’ abilities to meet their regulatory obligations through the use of technology. He is responsible for the day-to-day management of several RegTech solutions, including ViCA, ComplyPortal, and MAP FinTech (UK). In his role, Luis oversees the delivery of compliance management software, virtual compliance assistance via chat, transaction reporting, and transaction monitoring solutions to clients. These provide easier access to knowledge and improved workflow management, ensuring on-time reporting, compliance processes and frameworks are streamlined, easy to manage and secure. 

Luis previously worked for a Fortune Global 500 company delivering document management solutions for legal and compliance needs. His work focused on creating efficiency, increasing insight into information locked in unstructured data sources such as contracts and other records.   

His experience with change management has helped him lead efforts to establish and implement best practices within legal and compliance service areas, enabling clients to adopt technology into their current processes. Luis has facilitated clients' employing advanced technology tools, including cognitive learning, advanced analytics, and automation tools. This has helped clients manage mountains of data for a variety of tasks, such as research, investigation, compliance, data, and document management efforts.

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Knox Mcilwain

Global Lead Regulatory, Compliance & Licensing Strategy at AIRWALLEX

Knox leads the regulatory, compliance and licensing functions for Airwallex to support its continued expansion to serve new markets. Prior to Airwallex, he was a partner at Allen & Overy and worked in both London and New York at Cleary Gottlieb advising major banking institutions, FMIs, asset managers and G20 governments on financial services and regulatory matters. He started his career as a coder, network architect and entrepreneur. 

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Janusz Diemko

CEO at Xelo Pay

Currently, Janusz is CEO of Xelopay (Poland-based open banking payment startup) and is also an active Angel investor and mentor with over 15 investments in Poland and the UK made over the last few years. He has provided payment consulting and advisory services on M&A projects, market analyses and funding for payments businesses and start-ups. He has 20+ years in payments at Euronet, First Data, Polskie ePlatnosci – PEP, in roles from finance, sales, and business development, to M&A and management, in Poland, CEE with regional roles in Austria / Germany, Baltics, Ukraine, Russia.

He holds supervisory Board Membership at Ipopema Securities since 2005 and has held memberships at several other companies in the past (IQ Partner-Punk Pirates, Pekaes). Since 2014 he has been a Partner / Investor in Hedgehog Angel Fund, investing in early-stage e-commerce and ICT businesses in Poland.

In 2006-14, he was President of the Executive Board at First Data Polska. He managed the acquisition process of Polcard by G-Tech/Innova Capital to First Data and the subsequent integration of the company into the global organisation. He was Regional Director for Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

From 2006-14 and 2017-19 he was Chairman of Committee of Polish Acquirers under the auspices of the Association of Polish Banks and was a member of the Payment System Committee at the National Bank of Poland. He has presented, moderated and been a panel member at many payment conferences and is a judge at both the MPE and EPA conferences.

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Will Marwick

CEO at IFX Payments

Will Marwick is the Chief Executive Officer at IFX Payments. He is responsible for the company's wider strategic initiatives, managing key stakeholders across the group, and identifying new projects and potential growth opportunities.

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Iva Teneva

Head of Ongoing Corporate Due Diligence at OpenPayd

Iva is OpenPayd's Head of Ongoing Corporate Due Diligence and also heads up the Corporate Review team. She is ultimately responsible for the periodic and ad hoc due diligence reviews on existing customers, while also managing OpenPayd's customer risk and jurisdictional risk assessment. Iva has over eight years' experience working in financial crime departments of leading online payment companies. As a speaker of six languages, she has held various positions at several large organisations across the UK, Japan and Bulgaria.

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Suresh Vaghjiani

CEO at CLOWD9

Suresh is CEO and founder of B-Corp certified CLOWD9, the world’s first cloud-native, decentralized issuer processing platform. Born in the cloud, the platform delivers uncompromising, limitless payments technology around the globe. 

Suresh is a highly experienced senior executive with a proven track record of leading rapid-growth companies. He has expertise in developing products and services on behalf of both, financial technology, as well as FCA regulated companies. 

Bringing a wealth of knowledge in global payments with a number of prior senior roles including CEO of Tribe Payments, President & Managing Director of Threadd, as well as listed companies such as Paysafe Group and PXP Financial, Suresh has represented the Fintech sector and the UK Government on a number of trade missions to Mexico, Australia, and China.

John Mowat
Jovi Overo
Lee Clifton
Neelu Agarwal
Max Lehmann
Francis Gross
Dr. William Derban
Josephine Roy
Mark Ledsham
Tom Salmond
Mick McAteer
Jessica Richards
Alison Donnelly
Chris Pond
Elise Soucie
Sarah Sinclair
Leven Li
Luciana Mosoia
Eva Taleva-Borislavova
Adam Scarrott
Kent Mackenzie
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Ready to hear from inspirational leaders who have successfully navigated process, product and institutional innovation?

#financialinnovation

3rd Annual

Financial Innovation Forum
Payments & Regtech

19 SEPTEMBER 2024
Sheraton Grand Park Lane - Mayfair - London, United Kingdom
Bobby
Paul be
Zahra
Helene Oger-Zaher
Danil
fABIN
Suresh
Widad
Nikhil Asthana
Rich Wagner
Robert Courtneidge
Andrew Doukanaris
Sulabh Agarwal
Ishtiaq
Victoria Shulga
Danielle Treharne
Willem Wellinghoff
Petru
Sylwia
tony
Jane Jee
Luis para
Knox Mcilwain
Janusz
Will Marwick
Iva
Cathal McElroy
Suresh
nicole
chasity
David Messenger
Gary Palmer
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