Ready To Hear Views From The Most Influential Payments & Regtech Experts?
#npf
9th NextGen Payments & RegTech Forum
OUR SPEAKERS
Chris Aruliah
Chief Product Officer, BCB Group
Chris is an industry veteran, passionate about financial innovation, and was previously at Bitstamp, where he held the role of Head of Business Development and was responsible for helping financial institutions enter the crypto market and focused on identifying opportunities for integrating crypto with traditional finance. Prior to that, he launched the open banking payments platform, Token, and built the pipeline for the business in Europe.
Ruta Merkeviciute
Director, Financial Service and Capital Markets Supervision at Bank of Lithuania, Co-chairperson of the Standing Committee on Payment Services (SCPS) at European Banking Authority, Alternate Board Member at European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)
Rūta Merkevičiūtė is a Director of Financial Services and Markets Supervision Department at Bank of Lithuania, that is among other responsibilities is supervising payment market participants, i.e. over 120 so called FinTech companies (E-money and Payment institutions) and other payment service providers (banks, credit-unions and etc.).
She is also a co-chairperson of Standing committee, consisting of EU-27 Competent authorities, on Payments Services at European Banking Authority (EBA), that’s objective is to implement EBA's work programme, in areas related to payment services and electronic money and EU single payment market. She has professional legal qualification as an attorney-at law and for the past 10 years has been working both in private sector and financial sector’s supervision in the areas of responsibility that include AML, payments, open-banking, lending, crowdfunding, investment services, FinTech industry, Regulatory Sandbox and transposition of EU Directives such as PAD, PSD2 and AMLD4.
Previously, she was member of Lithuanian’s Payment council group, which were dedicated to investigate to further implementation of Open Banking in Lithuania.
Michael Clark
Vice President, Global Product and Technology Lead for Platforms, Ventures and Partnerships at Mastercard
Michael has been operating at the intersection of technology, business and customer throughout his career, delivering complex human centric innovative solutions and strategies, which push the boundaries, helping to create new innovative experiences and propositions for customers and employees. Across the globe he has played a key role in Open Banking and digital strategies for a number of tier one banks, as well as delivering next generation powered propositions and business strategies for various fintechs and corporates. In his role at Mastercard, Michael has designed and delivered one of Mastercard’s first Open banking products. He has since moved into the Ventures area of Labs as a service, where he is now focused on designing and delivering digital products and platforms of the future for today’s needs, taking advantage of the digital revolution to deliver total experiences for Mastercard and its customers. In addition Michael also sits on various Open Banking regulatory standards bodies across Europe, helping to design the future of finance, and its role in a digital world.
Dr. Justine Scerri Herrera
Partner at MK Fintech Partners Ltd
Justine is a warranted Maltese lawyer who obtained a Doctorate (LLD) from the University of Malta and a Law Master’s Degree (LLM) from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Justine started her legal career in the courtroom as a Criminal and Civil Litigator but quickly moved on to work in the corporate world where she gained experience in other sectors, namely the Financial Services and Investment Services sector/Capital Markets.
Justine’s previous employment includes employment with a Top Criminal Law Firm, an International Bank and a Leading Investment Services Firm (Exante). Last April 2019 Justine also received certification for a Capital Markets course she followed at the Malta Stock Exchange (MSE) titled ‘Trading Equities, Bonds and ETFs’ and a course titled ‘Virtual Financial Assets’ by the Malta Institute of Management (MIM) in preparation for obtaining the VFA Agent Licence needed to service crypto related clients. Justine currently specialises in the Fintech Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies sector at MK Fintech Partners which entity forms part of ‘Michael Kyprianou & CO. LLC’ group, which is incidentally Top ranked in The Legal 500 and according to Gold Magazine is the 3rd Largest in size in Cyprus. Justine mainly deals in advising and licencing for issuers and service providers falling under the Maltese Virtual Financial Assets Regulations (crypto & blockchain), Investment Services Act (Capital Market players, Capital Raising etc) and Financial Institutions Act (EMI, PI).
Elie Beyrouthy
Chair of the Executive Board at European Payment Institutions Federation (EPIF); Vice President, European Government Affairs at American Express
Elie Beyrouthy has been the Chair of the European Payment Institutions Federation (EPIF) since March 2018. He is the Vice President of European Government Affairs at American Express since June 2017, where he leads the company’s engagement with European Union Institutions and advises senior leaders on EU regulatory and public policy matters. Elie also represents American Express’ interests in several EU trade bodies and professional associations. Prior to joining American Express, Elie was Director of International Regulatory Affairs at Western Union for 5 years. From 2007 to 2012, Elie held leadership positions at the World Savings Banks Institute and the European Banking Federation. Elie began his career as an intern at the European Commission and the United States Federal District Court of Minnesota. He holds two Master's Degrees in Law from the University of Minnesota and from the Jean Moulin University in Lyon – France. He is also a graduate of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Lyon.
Georgios Kolovos
Global Head of Product Partnerships at PayPal
Georgios is responsible for identifying and developing new strategic partnerships, uncovering new markets and customer engagement opportunities to increase PayPal's reach. A results-oriented business development executive with extensive experience building and strengthening businesses, building partnerships; improving customer experience, developing new online channels and entering new markets/segments. A leader with a global mind-set having managed employees across 15 European, Asian countries & Australia, worked with customers from 4 continents and lived in 9 EMEA countries.
Dr. Michael Salmony
Executive Adviser to BoD at Worldline SE, regularly helps shape future directions in European decision making bodies e.g. European Commission, EPC, ERPB
Dr Michael Salmony is an internationally recognised leader on strategy of business innovations in digital and financial services with a particular focus on Payments, Open Banking, FinTech and Digital Identity.
He is board-level advisor to major international banks, industry associations, regulators and finance bodies across the world and regularly helps shape future directions in key decision making bodies (e.g. European Commission/ECB in Europe, and central banks from Japan to Uruguay and Kazakhstan). He is Executive Adviser to the Board of Worldline Financial Services, Europe’s largest (and the world’s 4th largest) financial processor of transactional services, which handles over 17 trillion Euro per year.
His views are much in demand as keynote speaker at international events and he appears on TV/Radio/all electronic media on advances in finance and is quoted extensively (e.g. Financial Times, Harvard Business Manager, New Scientist, The Economist and by business schools and governments from Ghana to Malaysia). He has published many original works which have been translated into many languages including German, Italian, Dutch, Finnish, Polish, Danish, Turkish, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. He is extensively networked into the new financial services space and has the top 5% most viewed profile out of the 200 million members in the world’s largest professional network LinkedIn.
Previous positions include Director Business Development of leading national central bank
(Bank of the Year, Best Innovator Award). Before entering the world of finance, he helped transform companies and business models in many industries as IBM's Director of Market Development Media and Communications Technologies. He studied at the University of Cambridge UK and is married with two millennial children.
Christos Christou
Group Chief Compliance Officer at LuLu International Exchange
A professional Compliance Officer working for 30+ years in the banking and non-banking financial services industry. He holds a banking degree (Chartered Banker Institute - UK), and an MBA from the University of Liverpool; he is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and Certified Global Sanctions Specialist (CGSS) from ACAMS®. He practices Regulatory Compliance and AML/CFT for 15 years, specializing in Sanctions, Trade-Based Money Laundering, Advanced Analytics and Forensics, and RegTech/FinTech. He started his career from Banking Operations and moved into training and development within the banking sector until 2005; for 15+ years he also worked as a part-time adjunct lecturer for the Chartered Bankers Institute, other Professional Training Academies, and different Universities and Colleges in Europe. He became a Group Compliance Project Manager for the bank in 2005 implementing policies, procedures, systems, and controls and he had different management positions within the Group Compliance Division of the bank. Since 2013, he works as the Chief Compliance Officer for Lulu Financial Group offering money remittance and foreign currency exchange products in multiple countries within GCC and APAC regions. He is a member of the Task Force for ACAMS® for exam writing, conferences, and subject matter experts panels, moderating and member of panels for many different conferences; he also is an active member of the Private Public Partnership Sub-Committee of the National AML/CFT Committee of the UAE.
Jessica Ramos
Head Of Regulatory & Oversight Affairs at EBA Clearing
Jessica Ramos is the Head of Regulatory & Oversight Affairs at EBA CLEARING. Prior, she held a number of positions at the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) namely in Oversight Affairs, Legal & Compliance, Finance and as Chief of Staff to the global CEO. At SWIFT she was also responsible for diversity and inclusion initiatives for the business. She started her career as an Associate in Consortium Central America in 2006, focusing on banking, finance and corporate law.
She is a member of the Belgian Company Lawyers Bar, the New York Bar, the Honduran Bar and the In-house Competition Lawyers Association. In addition to her Law Degree, Jessica holds an MBA in Finance, an LL.M. in Corporate Law from New York University (NYU) and an LL.M. in Competition Law and Economics from the Brussels School of Competition. She has recently been certified in Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), Cyber Security for Business Leaders and Social Media Marketing.
Jessica founded Mizbiz in 2016, an organisation aiming to connect, inspire and empower women in Belgium. She is a Board Advisor to CyberWayFinder and The Nine and a mentor for ConceptionX.
Michael C. G. Charalambides
CEO at EcommBX
Michael comes from a banking background with solid academic and strategic foundation in macro-economics and politics. Since the dawn of the Fin-Tech industry Michael has become a part of many leading industry projects and regulatory bodies via contribution through his network of projects. He has successfully launched with his peers the ECOMMPAY brand, was part of the project that launched the first private POS payments terminal in Cyprus and now has taken on a new venture and created the family of ECOMMBX as an EMI regulated under the CBC. Michael's favourite words that lead his vision are: “positive disruption” and “always work in the light".
Makis Savvides
Director of Global Payments and Fraud at Wargaming Group Limited
Makis is the Director of Payments at Wargaming Group Limited. He is responsible, among others, for the development and execution of the company payments strategy, its alignment to the overall product and company strategy and ensuring that the payments function remains at the forefront of payments innovation. The Wargaming payments platform offers more than 250 payment methods globally, allowing players to pay in their local payment methods and currency (more than 100 currencies are available). Wargaming is an award-winning online game developer and publisher headquartered in Nicosia, Cyprus. Operating since 1998, Wargaming has grown to become one of the leaders in the gaming industry with 5,500 employees and offices spread all over the world. Over 200 million players enjoy Wargaming’s titles across all major gaming platforms. The flagship products include the massively popular free-to-play hit World of Tanks, the strategic naval action game World of Warships and World of Tanks Blitz.
Makis is also a member of the Board of Directors of one of the largest insurance groups in Cyprus and is member of the European Advisory Board at the Merchant Risk Council, a global membership organization connecting eCommerce fraud and payments professionals through educational programs, online forums, career development, conferences, and networking events. Before joining Wargaming, Makis was a Director at Deloitte at the Financial Advisory department. He holds a BSc in Actuarial Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is also a Qualified Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).
Shubhanga Prasad
Director - Strategy, Product & Tech at OakNorth Bank
Strong operations and strategy executive with experience across multiple functions including product development, digital-led financial services, marketing, management information, operations, technology, customer services, strategy and planning, fintech investments, and consulting. Primary interests lie in defining new strategies, leading large transformational efforts and execution to help build organizations and teams that deliver growth while actively managing risk. Experience in end-to-end operations, business continuity, outsourced functions / vendors, and risk & controls with a track record of sustained delivery to help scale businesses in a disciplined manner.
Panagiotis Kriaris
Head Of Business Development at Unzer
I have spent my career in the borderline between business and technology and bring expertise from senior leadership roles that combine Financial Services & Banking with FinTech, Payments, E-commerce & Digital Projects.
Having worked across the board in Financial Services & Banking (key roles in Commercial / Corporate & SME Banking, Retail Banking, Payments and FinTech) I have an end-to-end understanding of the entire business and of both the challenges and opportunities in the industry today.
On the technology side, I bring hands-on experience from the start-up and e-business space where I have had the chance to explore how technology and new e-business models can drive innovation and help businesses grow.
It has been fascinating throughout my career not only to watch the convergence of these multiple / parallel worlds but also to take an active role in its shaping.
Innovation, strategy, building businesses and products from scratch and setting up partnerships have been at the center of my work and attention over the last years.
Siri Børsum
Global VP Finance Vertical Eco-development & Partnerships at Huawei Consumer Business Group
Siri G. Børsum joined Huawei as Global VP Finance Vertical Eco-development & Partnership within Business Consumer Group in March 2020. At Huawei, she’s building a new organization from Oslo (NO) within the firm, aimed at the world's banking and finance sector. Siri looks back at a successful track record of being a part in building up companies: She was one of the first hires at OMD Norway, Kanal 24 (now Radio Norge), and Google Norway, hugely contributing to their today’s success. At Google, she had worked for 12 years, where she’d been the Industry Leader for Travel & Finance and served as Brand & Culture/Innovation Evangelist in Silicon Valley. She is a popular speaker on topics such as finance, digitization, digital marketing, transformation, and innovation She has 20 years of experience from the media industry in sales, finance, and from various board positions. Siri has a strong and passionate relationship with digitalization, organizational culture, innovation and the opportunities technology provides, and how it can improve both the customer journey and not least the results.
Christos Ttiniozos
Director at iSPIRAL IT Solutions Ltd
With over 20 years of experience on custom software development we deliver the most reliable custom software solutions that match the unique requirements of our customers. We are a recognized leader providing high-impact RegTech Solutions for Banks, Financial Institutions, FOREX, Card Issuers, Payment Providers, Hospitals/Clinics, Law, Fiduciary and Accounting firms.
Specialties: Enterprise Risk & Compliance Management, Anti Money Laundering - Know Your Client (risk based approach), Transaction Monitoring/Screening for AML, Fund Administration, Fund Management, Corporate Secretarial, Time & Billing for Accounting/Auditing offices, Hospital Solution, Property Management Software.
Maria E Tsani
Head of Financial Services Public Policy and Regulatory Affairs EMEA, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Maria joined AWS in 2019, after more than a decade in the banking sector dealing with emerging policy and regulatory requirements. Born in Buenos Aires, she previously worked at the Argentine Ministry of Industry as a political advisor before moving to London to pursue post-graduate research thanks to a UK Government Chevening Scholarship. At AWS, Maria supports Financial Services customers as they leverage the scale, security, and agility of AWS to transform the industry. Maria is a regular speaker at industry events and contributes her expertise to several industry bodies. She holds a Master of Arts in Globalization studies from Warwick University and an MBA from the UCEMA in Buenos Aires. Maria currently lives in Valencia, Spain, with her husband and 4 year old son.
Clea Evagorou
Partner, Risk Advisory Leader, Deloitte
Clea Evagorou is the Risk Advisory Leader at Deloitte in Cyprus and RA FSI Leader for Deloitte North South Europe. Clea specialises in Banking and Financial Services, leading Deloitte’s Payment Services offerings. She is a member of Deloitte’s Banking Union Centre in Frankfurt and EMEA Centre for Regulatory Strategy; and Vice President of ICPAC’s Financial Services Committee. Clea is a Fellow Chartered Accountant, a Chartered Tax Advisor and a Member of the UK’s Institute of Consulting.
Nick Kerigan
Head of Innovation Execution at SWIFT
In this role, he is responsible for driving innovation globally across the Cards and Payments businesses, creating customer and commercial opportunities from the rapid changes in payments. His team is responsible for designing and developing exciting new innovations such as the award winning grab+go and dine and dash.
Nick is a seasoned conference speaker at industry events: select engagements include keynote at The Fintech World Forum, The Cards and Payments Summit, Lafferty International Cards and Payments Conference and the Future of Payments Conference. Nick has an established presence as a thought leader in payments as the author of many articles and active on social media.
Nicholas Messaritis
CTO at EcommBX
Nicholas Messaritis currently holds the position of Chief Technology Officer for the last 3 years, the last year working for EcommBX Electronic Money Institution. Previously, he worked as a software developer and payments consultant for financial software vendors TSYS and OpenWay. Nicholas is still actively involved in software development and he is fascinated by new development in the space of software development and by fintech innovations especially in the area of automations.
Ken Coghill
Director and Head of Innovation and Technology Risk Supervision at the Dubai Financial Services Authority
Ken leads the DFSA’s innovation and technology risk supervision programmes. This includes overseeing the Innovation Testing Licence programme (a.k.a. regulatory sandbox); the supervision of innovative technology-enabled financial services providers such as payment services providers, crowdfunding platforms, automated wealth management, virtual assets providers; and the cyber risk supervision programme.
Ken joined the DFSA in 2012 and has since led the supervision of brokerage and trading activities and numerous banking institutions, and the restructure of the DFSA’s supervisory risk model. Prior to joining the DFSA, Ken managed a team of market conduct investigators at the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), prior to which Ken was an open-outcry and electronic equity options market maker on the trading floor of the CBOE.
** The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) is the independent regulator for the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).
Dr. Gege Gatt
CEO at EBO
Dr. Gege Gatt is a digital entrepreneur, an IT-Law specialist and an experienced Director serving on a number of company boards. He’s passionate about digital transformation strategy. He is the co-founder and CEO of London-based company EBO.AI, an Artificial Intelligence platform which is disrupting the customer engagement industry through data. His work has been covered by Forbes, the Telegraph, the FT and others. He’s a Director at ICON: a software development company serving markets in central and northern Europe. He is the Vice President of the Malta IT Law Association which promotes awareness of IT law issues including privacy and cybersecurity. Gege is the Chairman of Beacon Media Group which is a multi-platform media service including online and offline cannels. Gege is a lecturer, and specialist examiner at the University of Malta. He is a regular contributor to IT publications and academic papers, and a frequent speaker at business and technology conferences. He has co-authored a book on Digital Psychology and 6 papers on digital marketing. Pro bono, Gege acts as a Board Member on the Vatican’s initiative on technology and well being in Rome: Humanity 2.0 for which he also mentored the first ever Vatican Hackathon
Luke Ashley
Business Development Director at TruNarrative
Luke has been in the ‘Financial Crime Technology’ space for over 12 years helping businesses in Cyprus and wider Europe strike a balance between frictionless customer experience and compliance with KYC/AML regulation. At TruNarrative, this balance is struck with a unique combination of data, technology and expertise. TruNarrative provide solutions to FinTechs, Payment Providers, Banks, FOREX, Card Issuers, EMI Wallets and many more.
Mohamed Afifi
Group Chief Compliance Officer & Corporate Governance at Banque Misr, Egypt
Mohamed AFIFI is the Group Chief Compliance Officer & Corporate Governance of Banque Misr in Egypt since January 2019. Banque Misr is the second largest commercial bank in Egypt with a customer base over 10 Million clients diversified between Retail, Corporates and Financial Institutions & over 700 local branches. Banque Misr has overseas branches in UAE & France, and subsidiaries in Lebanon & Germany. M. AFIFI has extensive experience spanning over 40 years in the banking industry from Operations, Retail and control functions with both Commercial & Islamic banks in different countries in Africa & Asia.
Prior to joining Banque Misr, he held key positions in a number of leading regional and international banks and institutions, such as the Arab Banking Corporation in Bahrain (2012-2018), were he held the position of the Group Compliance Officer (2010-2013) Group Financial Crime Officer (2014-2016) the Co-Head of the Wholesale Banking Middle Office (2016-2018), the Country Head of Compliance for Barclays Bank Egypt (2010-2012), the MENA Regional Compliance Head for the Private Bank with Standard Chartered at the DIFC (2007-2010), the Regional Compliance Officer for National Bank of Abu Dhabi (2003-2006), Deputy Chief Operation Officer with Credit Agricole Indosuez (2000-2003) and the Country Head of Audit with BNP Paribas Egypt (1997-2000).
Mohamed holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in addition to various Audit & Compliances courses, he fluently speaks Arabic, English and French and a permanent speaker in major Compliance and AML forums in the MENA region.
Panos Kyriakides
Commercial Manager at eBOS
Panos Kyriakides is a business professional with more than twenty years of experience in the Financial and Banking sector. Throughout the course of his career, he has gained valuable insights in communicating with people at all levels, by building and maintaining sound business relationship with customers and stakeholders. His extensive experience in compliance and due diligence of clients, enables him to analyse and understand clients’ needs and promote business products and services to potential clients while strictly streamlining processes in line with regulations and thus ensuring compliance to enforced practices and policies. Panos is currently the Commercial Manager of eBOS.
Ugne Buraciene
CEO at Payabl, and EWPN Country Ambassador
Ugne has 14+ years experience in banking and payments, through working with multiple global FinTech companies. Her experience allowed to develop her expertise and acquire extensive knowledge and understanding of complex payments and banking ecosystems. These include knowledge in acquiring and issuing, banking and open banking, best industry practices and key principles of international business operations with concrete focus on business development, marketing and growth. Ugne is an all things payments enthusiast. She proudly focuses on building scalable payment solutions for global e-commerce businesses to accept and make frictionless payments not only locally but internationally. Currently leading Payabl. (Powered by Powercash21) as the CEO of the group, spread across Cyprus, Germany and UK. She is also the country ambassador in Cyprus for the European Women Payments Network (EWPN) advocating diversity and inclusivity in Fintech.
Muzzi Ebrahim
Partner, Financial Advisory, Financial Crime & Analytics at Deloitte Middle East
Muzzi has over 18 years of experience in both corporate and consulting roles focusing on the areas of risk and regulatory compliance. He is currently the Financial Crime and Analytics leader at Deloitte Middle East having held the same role for the Deloitte Africa practice prior to his move to the Middle East region. Muzzi is passionate about helping clients in the fight against financial crime, particularly through the use of advanced approaches using technology and analytics lead solutions.
Tony Petrov
Head of Legal at Sumsub
Tony Petrov is the Head of Legal at Sumsub, an all-in-one technical and legal toolkit for tackling compliance needs worldwide. He is an experienced regtech attorney with a focus on data privacy, AML/KYC compliance, and regulatory relations. Tony is CYSEC-certified AML Officer, and also participates in legislative processes in several jurisdictions as an expert consultant.
Education and licenses:
-
University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, LL.M. in Transnational Business Law
-
University of California Berkeley - IT Law
-
St. Petersburg State University Faculty of Law, Chamber of International Law, Master of Laws
-
CySEC Anti-Money Laundering Certificate (2021)
Matthew Key
Independent advisor on emerging tech to global FS companies at keyinnovate.com
A visionary technology Innovator within Financial Services/Payments and a leading expert in Digital Transformation, IOT, Security & Biometrics, AI, 5G and Blockchain. Further extensive knowledge of the Telco sector and a well known speaker, author and media commentator on topical subjects. Core skills are in developing products, customer propositions and strategies for business growth.
Stelios Georgakis
Director, Central Bank of Cyprus
Stelios joined the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) in 1992, after qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in the UK. In January 2013 he became the Head of the Licensing and Regulatory Compliance Section of the Supervision Division. As such, he negotiated the AML action plan with the Troika relating to the banking sector, and oversaw its successful implementation. With the introduction of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) of the European Central Bank, he became responsible for the On-Site Inspections, the AML/CFT supervision and the prudential supervision of credit, payment and e-money institutions that fall outside the scope of the SSM. In March 2017 he became Head of the supervision of significant and less significant credit institutions. He was the CBC member of the EBA Board of Supervisors and alternate member of the Supervisory Board of the SSM. As of 1 November 2020, he is Head of the Financial Market Infrastructures & Payments Department and of the Accounting Services & Controlling Department.
Stelios also holds a B.Sc.(Hons) in Civil Engineering and an MBA.
Denisa Jindřichová
Senior Legal Counsel, Licensing and Enforcement Department at Czech National Bank
Skills proven by the successful and long lasting experience in different legal areas with emphasis on payments, cash legislation, cybersecurity and consumer protection in the area of credits (MCD). These activities include drafting of the brand new legislation, amendments of existing legislation, and legal interpretation of different problems. Among other activities it is possible to count coordination of co-operation of the CNB on the EU level, cooperation with the Czech Banking Association and other non-banking industry associations, with the Ministry of Finance, etc.
Developments of new methods of payments like so called innovative, mobile payments and rules of cybersecurity etc. Regulation and licensing process of FinTech.The member of Remonstrance Committee of the Ministry of Finance.
Vishalanand Shah
Director – Applications System, Digital Modernization Engineering at Global Payments, Tsys
Vishalanand holds 22+ years of experience in the payments and transactions industry. He has niche knowledge in the banking industry, payment schemes, digital innovations, and the data modeling arena. He holds deep experience in the management of large-scale IT projects, service managements methodologies, and people management skills. Banks and customers across Europe, LATAM, ISEA, MEA, and CIS have received his expert services. Vishalanand is a vegetarian foodie and loves tracking, gardening.
Matthew Osborne
Payments Policy Leader at Bank of England
Matthew leads the payments policy team at the Bank of England, who are responsible for developing the regulatory regime for systemic payment stablecoins in the UK. Matthew’s background is as a financial economist and he has spent time working in the treasury at NatWest Group. Before that he held a number of roles at the Bank of England and Financial Services Authority. Matthew has a PhD in finance from Bayes (formerly Cass) Business School.
Nir Netzer
FinTech Innovation Strategist Founding Partner of Equitech Group and Chairman of The Israeli FinTech Association
Nir is the Founding Partner of Equitech Group & Chairman of the Israeli FinTech Association - FinTech-Aviv.
FinTech Innovation Strategist, FinTech Transformation Adviser, Tech Scouter and a keen leader of the Israeli FinTech ecosystem, driving its growth by curating and hosting FinTech conferences as well as lecturing in academic courses.
Nir is a C.P.A, holds an LL.B and an MBA in finance and financial management.
Jiří Ambrož
Head of Payments Regulation and Oversight Unit, Financial Regulation and International Cooperation Department, Czech National Bank
Jiří joined Czech National Bank in 2016 as a Legal Expert. He is currently a Head of Payments Regulation and Oversight Unit in the Financial Regulation and International Cooperation Department. His team is mainly responsible for legal and policy issues related to European and national payments legislation, international cooperation in the field of payments as well as oversight of financial market infrastructures. Jiří is also a member of several policy structures within European Central Bank and European Banking Authority. His previous experience include public administration and legal advisory. Jiří holds a master’s degree of Law from Charles University in Prague with a period of study at Free University of Berlin.
Harry Xenophontos
Head of Merchant Acquiring, Open Banking & Digital Payment Services, at RCB BANK
A business professional with over 15 years of professional experience in Management Consulting, IT and Risk related services; including pragmatic senior management experience within the Banking and Card Services corporate environments.
A “Big 4” background that drives professional attitude and quality driven results. A leader with excellent people skills and very well known in the consulting environment and payments industry locally. Passionate of the emerging innovation and transformation of the financial services industry, looking to empower the consumer payment experience and services, towards a better digital economy.
Rui Pimentel
Head of Unit - Payment Systems Department at Banco de Portugal
Rui Pimentel heads a team focused on the analysis of developments in retail payment systems. As a management graduate, Rui joined Banco de Portugal in 1997 and has worked on several projects over the years, including the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) implementation and later the adaptations of the market to the requirements of PSD1 and PSD2, as well as the design of the National Retail Payments Strategy in 2020. Across this period, Rui has taken part in national and international working groups, covering payments-related issues from the retail side, such as innovation and security issues in the context of the Bank’s catalyst role. As a result, Rui has participated regularly as speaker and panelist in conferences and seminars, as well as in co-operation projects with other Central Banks.
Dheeraj Jaggi
Director - OpenBanking & API Technology at NatWest Group
Dheeraj Jaggi (DJ) an API enthusiastic & Evangelist and Principal Engineer within NatWest Enterprise Engineering . He manages the OpenBanking & API Platform from India location for the NatWest Group that includes building APIs for Third Parties Providers, conformance to OpenBanking (PSD2 & FCA) standards & regulations, Account and Payment Initiation APIs, Onboarding and Foundational Microservices. With many years’ experience in the banking and IT space, DJ has delivered many API Products to the market and passionately believes in the transformative power of APIs in any business unit or organisation.