Open Banking Expo UK & Europe Speakers

Abbas Rana is Head of Product for Global Payments Solutions for HSBC UK, responsibility for developing and managing solutions across cards, payments, and current accounts. Abbas has been with HSBC for eight years where he has held several leadership roles in product, overseeing regulatory changes and product and pricing changes for UK business and corporate customers. Prior to HSBC, Abbas has worked in several banking and payments roles, specialising in proposition development and new product launches. Abbas has previously worked at Barclays, VocaLink and Payments.UK. Abbas also worked at Lloyds where he helped to set up their Islamic Banking proposition for personal customers.

Adam Preis is Director Solution Marketing at ForgeRock, and is responsible for industry marketing in the EMEA region. Over the past 10 years, Adam has taken a number of digital offerings to market, managed complex technology projects, and led customer and partner relationships across the private and public sectors.

Andrew is Head of Variable Recurring Payments (VRP) at Tink, the market leader in open banking. He joined in 2022 to turbocharge the next phase of sweeping and non-sweeping VRP developments in the UK and EU. Andrew is a member of the EPC’s Multi-Stakeholder Group for the SPAA scheme initiative. Previously, Andrew led product commercialisation of emerging payments and fintechs for Wholesale Payments at J.P. Morgan in the US. Andrew spent five years as Head of Banking, North America for Wise and also served as Director of International and Payments for Kickstarter.

Andrew is a senior manager in the Payment Systems Regulator’s policy team. He is responsible for reforms to a range of key areas of payments policy, including Open Banking and digital payments.

Andrew has a deep background in regulatory policy, joining the PSR in 2021 from Ofgem, Great Britain’s energy regulator, where he most recently oversaw reforms to network charging arrangements.

Anna leads the Insight, Communications and interim registration functions at the LSB. She is responsible for driving forward strategies which: reaffirm to registered firms the requirements of the LSB’s Standards and Codes through the provision of insight; raise awareness of the LSB and the importance of delivering good customer outcomes; and support applicant firms through the registration process.

Anna has extensive experience working in risk and compliance and is passionate about delivering customer centric solutions through the provision of best practice frameworks and strategies.

Arturo is the CEO of Eurobits Technologies, a Tink company. His career has been marked by his role in the introduction of high-tech products and services to the financial sector. His pioneering work in financial technology has led to innovative services like electronic payments, mobile banking and electronic invoicing. Eurobits has been offering services now classified as Account Information Service in Europe since 2004 to some of the top Eurozone and LATAM top banks, making Eurobits the pioneer in this market. Arturo launched Eurobits, went through an MBO and ultimately sold the company to Tink during 2020. Eurobits is a signatory to the Future of European Fintech which has campaigned for fair access under PSD2. Arturo is the Vice-Chairman of the European Third Party Providers Association and represents the ETPPA at the ERPB and the EPC. He is also the vice-chair of the Spanish Fintech Association (AEFI).

Brook Lovatt is the CEO of Cloudentity – a leading-edge Consumer Identity and Access Management software provider offering compliance with open banking specifications and regulations worldwide. Brook has over 22 years of experience in Identity and Access Management software as a developer, architect, consultant, and executive at IBM and Oracle as well as several security-focused start-ups and boutique consulting firms.

Charles Damen is Token’s Chief Product Officer. Prior to joining Token, Charles was the SVP Product Strategy at Worldpay, responsible for Real Time Payments and Open Banking. He brings more than 20 years of payments, mobile and internet experience to his role. Prior to Worldpay Charles founded and led the global cross border payments division at Thunes enabling real time payments to and from emerging markets. Before Thunes, Charles led the payments and fraud team at global ecommerce merchant Bumble and was a board member at the Merchant Risk Council. Prior to Badoo he was head of the Mobile Payments line of business at Syniverse and co-founded the mobile messaging business Mobile365 which was sold to SAP. Charles holds a dual Bachelor Degree in European Business from the International School of Economics Rotterdam (ISER) in the Netherlands and from Groupe Ecole Supérieure de Commerce (ESC) Bordeaux in France.

Chris Curry was appointed as Principal of the Pensions Dashboards Programme at the Money and Pensions Service in 2019, on a part-time basis. Chris brings valuable expertise and insight gained in his other role as the Director of the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), where he continues to work part-time. Chris has worked on important projects, such as the Department for Work and Pensions Auto-Enrolment Review Advisory Group in 2017, where he was co-chair and led on providing advice on the theme of Contributions.

At the PPI, Chris has authored and presented a number of research reports analysing pensions (including state, private and public sector pensions), pension reforms and other provision for retirement income.

Chris started his career as an Economic Adviser at the Department of Social Security (now the Department for Work and Pensions), before joining the Association of British Insurers as Senior Economist.

Chris has a BSc (Hons) in Economics from the University of Warwick, and an MSc in Economics from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London.

Colm Lyon is CEO and founder of fire.com – a digital payments business. He is one of Europe’s leading payments and fintech entrepreneurs. With a career spanning more than 30 years, Colm has built payment businesses, led change across the industry and supported the wider business community.

Fire is a digital payment business. Regulated since 2010, Fire helps business get paid, pay out and go digital with their payment processes. The business is now processing billions in payments per annum for thousands of business clients, including some of world’s largest financial institutions. It supports numerous payment services including bank transfers (£/€), FX, open banking payments and debit card issuing – all built on its own inhouse platform.

Previously Colm was the founder and CEO of Realex Payments, one of Europe’s largest and most successful online payments businesses, which was acquired by Global Payments in March 2015. Colm is a member of the UK Finance Payments Products and Services Board, Chair of the Digital PSP Group, a member of the Strategic Participant Group for the New Payments Architecture and a member of the JROC Open Banking Future Entity Working Group in the UK. Via his family office, Colm has invested in numerous Irish and UK startups and venture funds. He has received many awards and held several industry leadership positions, including chairman of the Irish Internet Association, founder of Payments Ireland and co-founder & chairman of the Fintech and Payments Association of Ireland. Colm was an adjunct professor for University College Cork and remains a member of the International Advisory Board of the Innovation Academy in University College Dublin.

Conor is the Interim Chief Executive of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute. Before stepping up in May 2023, Conor was Head of Research and Policy, leading Money and Mental Health’s research and policy development. Prior to joining the team in 2020, Conor worked in the civil service but has spent most of his career in the third sector, with roles at the Resolution Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. From 2021-23, he was a trustee of the Lewisham Irish Community Centre.

Product Manager at Global Payments focusing on bringing our Open Banking payment solution to market. Have been with Global Payments for just over a year, prior to joining Global Payments I spent 5 years with Zopa, a challenger bank based in London. With Zopa, I helped introduce an online only car finance product to the UK market.

Cristina has a breadth of experience with over two decades in B2B PR, communications and marketing in the UK and globally. As a director and the head of London-based Babel PR’s fintech portfolio, she lives and breathes B2B PR, fintech, enterprise tech and marcomms. A builder of bridges, partnerships, ideas and teams, she’s deeply passionate about fintech, open banking and open finance.

Dan is based in London and works in Stripe’s Financial Partnerships team, where he is responsible for Stripe’s Open Banking product and strategy.

As Director and Co-Founder of obconnect, Darran brings over 35 years of expertise in Financial Systems and Payment Processing. Darran’s experience includes leading large-scale implementations and delivering innovation to banks, issuers, acquirers, merchants, and processors around the world. Including 25 years within the card schemes implementing projects like global migration to Chip and PIN the late 90’s, early 2000’s for Visa and American Express

Darran is passionate about revolutionising the Open Banking and Open Data space, enabling Banks to provide Open Banking and Confirmation of Payee solutions that enable EcoSystem participants to harness data, and validate customers and payment processing capabilities through cutting-edge solutions. Having worked in Open Banking and Confirmation of Payee from the beginning Darran brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table having driven solutions for Banks and Fintechs alike. Darran is one of the few people that have built Open Banking for Banks to comply and for TPPs to connect, consume data and execute Payments.

David joined Mastercard at the start of 2018 to develop and implement the strategy for Open Banking. This has primarily involved leading the product development and launch of Open Banking solutions in Europe. These solutions now power a number of the leading Open Banking Applications across Europe.

Prior to Mastercard, David spent over twenty years in financial services at NatWest and Lloyds Bank in a variety of digital and multi-channel leadership roles, with a common theme of bringing innovative ideas to life.

Having been deeply involved in the development of internet banking, eCommerce payments and mobile banking, David is excited to be contributing to Open Banking – the next major transformation of financial services.

David is a partner at Slaughter & May. His practice incorporates transactional and advisory work for a broad range of established financial institutions, financial technology firms and challenger banks.

He has detailed practical experience of the prudential and conduct regimes that apply to UK financial institutions in all financial sectors, and of the UK recovery and resolution regime. He regularly advises financial institutions and investors on the structuring of capital instruments, with a particular focus on complex funding models, group structures and capital structuring in an M&A context.

Dennis Sanford-Casey is an experienced Data & Analytics consultant with 22 years’ working in Credit Bureau solutions, 16 of those years have been focused on debt collection, tracing, engaging customers understanding financial difficulty and propensity to pay.

Dennis is a subject matter expert within Equifax focusing on collections and contact strategies, utility, telecoms & public sector consultancy support. As a Solution design consultant designing collections strategies based around data & analytics across multiple verticals he’s a specialist in the deployment of financial difficulty flags, trace, contact and propensity to pay products. Dennis has designed and deployed a litigation score working with a major UK Debt Purchase company, this score has now been deployed across multiple clients across various sectors and is actively used in the Utilities & Telcoms sector.

Serial entrepreneur Donal McGuinness is CEO of Prommt. He studied Computer Science at DCU and Telecommunications Engineering at DIT and spent the early years of his career in the telecommunications industry. His experience in mobile payments dates to 1999 when he founded his first mobile payments company, ItsMobile.In 2016 Donal joined a silicon valley startup in the identity verification space called Danal inc, where he set up and grew the global business outside of the USA as General Manager of EMEA until 2019 when the business was acquired by Boku Inc for $112 million USD. Donal joined Prommt as CEO in 2019. Donal has a passion for payment innovation and believes the next 2-3 years will see a rapid acceleration of innovation in payments.

An economics graduate, Ed founded Bud alongside his school friend George Dunning in 2015. Under his leadership, Bud has grown to more than 80 people, securing more than $20m in investment from Banks like HSBC and Goldman Sachs. The company is now headquartered in Hackney and works with some of the largest banks in the world on realising the potential of intelligent financial data for their customers

Emilian is a tech enthusiast and entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in software engineering and data science. Holding a master’s degree in Automatics and Robotics from Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Emilian specializes in creating smart systems and understanding human behavior.

Currently serving as the CTO at Planky.com, a leading open banking account information and analytical platform, Emilian is a key player in driving technological advancements in the financial sector. Under Emilian’s leadership, Planky.com has become known for its innovative approach, combining traditional machine learning with advanced generative AI.

Emilian’s passion lies in developing open banking analytical AI platforms that break new ground. This passion has led to the creation of a platform that not only provides businesses with valuable insights but also explores the exciting potential of artificial intelligence in finance.

Beyond the professional realm, Emilian’s expertise shines as a thought leader and visionary. With a strong foundation in creating intelligent systems and a proven track record in entrepreneurship, Emilian continues to push the boundaries of technology, inspiring both peers and the next generation of tech enthusiasts.

A serial tech entrepreneur Ez’s journey has taken him from Software Developer to Co-Founder and CTO to Venture Capital. He now begins the next stage of his mission as CEO of CFIT the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology. An industry body backed by the UK Treasury and the City of London with a mission to unblock the barriers to growth for financial technology by bringing together the best minds from across the UK to drive better outcomes for consumers and SMEs.

Ez was previously Principal and CTO in Residence at Impact X Capital Partners LLP a venture fund focused on supporting underrepresented entrepreneurs.

He is the Co-Founder of Code Untapped, a digital skills accelerator that helps companies find innovative product solutions by giving them access to diverse and underrepresented technologists through their innovation labs events

He is a former Co-Founder & founding CTO of Neyber a multi-award-winning Fintech firm focused on financial well-being.

In 2023 Ez was appointed as Trustee to the board of Crisis, one of the UK’s leading homelessness Charities where he also supports as a strategic advisor to the Venture Studio from Crisis which invests in, supports and creates startups to end homelessness.

In January 2022 Ez was named on the New Year’s honours list for 2022 to receive an MBE for services to Diversity and to Young people.

Faith is an independent consumer finance expert. She is a member of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Financial Services Consumer Panel where she chairs the EU Working Group and is the lead for technology and innovation. She acts as the Customer Representative on the Open Banking Implementation Entity Steering Group and authored the widely-read report, ‘Open Banking: A Consumer Perspective’. She recently joined the Current Account Switch Service as an independent non-executive director. Faith is also a member of the RegTech Council.

Previously, Faith was a member of the Payments Strategy Forum, ESMA’s Financial Innovation Standing Committee Consultative Working Group, as well as CILEX’s Strategic Risk Committee. Between 2010-2012 Faith pursued the Clore Social Leadership Programme, undertaking research into Big Society while based at the Institute for Government and more recently helped the Institute look at how it creates impact.

Gabrielle Gleeson is Chief Commercial Officer at TotallyMoney, the personal finance app for the UK’s 20 million overlooked and financially under-served adults. With more than five million customers, TotallyMoney puts people in control of their own data, so they can improve their finances and achieve their goals. In her role, Gabrielle is key to helping customers unlock their best offers, made possible through collaboration with traditional lenders, and with innovative lenders using open banking data in credit decisioning.

Gavin has created over a dozen companies, employing 100’s of people, and delivering $100M’s in measurable impact. He co-chaired the development of the Open Banking Standard, was founding CEO of the Open Data Institute, and has raised over $100M in venture and philanthropic funding. He has mentored, chaired, or been non-exec of over 30 organisations across sectors. Mostly recently Gavin, founded and now runs IcebreakerOne.org, making data work harder to deliver a Net Zero Future.

George Dunning is COO and Co-founder of data intelligence fintech Bud Financial (Bud). George founded Bud alongside his school friend, Edward Maslaveckas, in 2015. Under his leadership, Bud has grown to some 120 people, and secured more than $100m in investment.

George comes from a software engineering background and, as the CTO of Bud at its inception, he helped build and deliver the first versions of the original Bud platform.

After four years of successfully building out the Product and Engineering departments for Bud, George moved into a COO position post-series A, in order to oversee the overall execution and delivery of the company across all verticals.

Since becoming COO, George has overseen all of Bud’s key product launches and client deliveries, culminating in landing investments from the likes of TDR and TransUnion.

Gerald Chappell co-founded Abound and Render to expand access to affordable credit.

Abound is a consumer lender that uses Open Banking to truly understand each applicant – what they earn, how they spend, and what’s left at the end – rather than relying on credit scores and statistical averages. This is made possible by their in-house credit decisioning platform Render. Thanks to Render, defaults on Abound’s loans are 70% lower than market expectations, and over 60% of Abound’s customers would not have been approved had they been assessed by traditional methods. Lenders across Europe are now able to use Render to incorporate Open Banking into their credit decisioning.

Prior to Abound and Render, Gerald was a Partner at McKinsey & Company where he was Global Head of Digital Lending, and Global Head of Credit Analytics.

Gijs Boudewijn (1958) is currently General Manager at the Dutch Payments Association (DPA). He has extensive experience in domestic as well as international payments related issues. He is Chair of the Legal Support Group of the European Payments Council (EPC) after serving several terms as Board member, and Vice-Chair of the Payment Systems Committee of the European Banking Federation (EBF, after having served 3 terms as Chair). Closely involved in PSD2 matters, open banking and the RTS of the EBA. He is member of the SPAA Multi Stakeholder Group of the EPC and Vice-Chair of the European Card Payments Association (ECPA). Last, he is a member of the Payment Systems Market Expert Group (PSMEG) of the European Commission. He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences on strategic and regulatory payments related issues, instant payments, new technologies and open banking.

Hannah leads on all areas of financial policy for the British Retail Consortium, representing retailer views primarily on payments issues and developments, working to drive forwards innovation in retail payments. She represents retailers on several working groups and committees including JROC’s Open Banking working groups, Pay.UK’s industry advisory council, and SCOR. In early 2023, Hannah hosted the retail industry’s first ever Open Banking event, bringing together retailers with regulators and industry to work through and voice any concerns. Prior to working at the BRC, Hannah worked in Policy at the FCA, consulting on and drafting new policies looking at section 75 and consumer protections as well as the FCA’s work on vulnerable consumers.

Successfully led on a range of client projects, including Safeguarding auditing, risk assessment implementation, contesting FCA supervision action, supporting firm’s through regulatory enforcement action, applying for authorisation, etc.

Undertaking client work in the most complex of cases, providing advice and practical assistance to encourage clients to develop procedures in line with the regulator’s requirements. Being a subject matter expert in the UK Anti-Money Laundering regulations, Payment Services Regulations, Electronic Money regulations and Open Banking guidelines.

Previously worked in specialist compliance consultancies, focused in assisting firms with their FCA regulatory needs. Specialising in supporting firms that are regulated under the Payment Services and Electronic Mony Regulations in the UK with a specialist focus on Opening Banking regulatory requirements and guidance.

Assisting AISPs, PISPs, ASPSPs, and TSPs to adequately implement their compliance standards including understanding of Strong Customer Authentication, Explicit Consent, Customer Experience Guidelines, Confirmation of Payee, and VRP.

At TrueLayer Jack leads our engagement with UK and EU regulators and authorities, and sits on a number of committees as a fintech and regulatory expert.

Jane is Head of Department in Payments & Digital Assets at the FCA, working on crypto and payments policy. Jane came to Payments & Digital Assets from Resolution, covering the insolvency of FCA regulated firms. Previously Jane concentred on Client Assets, and has a background as a corporate lawyer.

Janine Hirt is the Chief Operating Officer and a Board Member at Innovate Finance (IF), the industry body for UK FinTech. Janine is responsible for monitoring key trends in FinTech and innovation to ensure Innovate Finance is continuously providing its membership community – from startups to multinational financial institutions – with the best support possible. Having joined the founding Innovate Finance leadership team in 2015 first as Head of Membership then Ecosystem Director, in her role as COO Janine continues to oversee IF’s broader member ecosystem and directly manages the relationship with its highest supporters. She currently runs the IF Institutional Forum and previously ran IF’s Artificial Intelligence Working Group, Financial Inclusion Working Group, RegTech Working Group, and Payments Working Group. Janine regularly speaks on various FinTech and innovation themes at conferences and events around the world.

Janine received her BA Magna Cum Laude from Boston College, JYA at Oxford University, and her MSc from the London School of Economics. Janine is an American, Swiss and German national who calls NYC and London home.

Jason is a proven business leader with over 20 years’ experience in FinTech, with a specific focus on Open Banking and Open Finance. As an early pioneer in the field, Jason opened Envestnet Yodlee’s International offices in Europe, Africa, India and Australia, delivering account aggregation to the fintech community, helping to innovate services like credit decisioning, money management and accounting, to name a few. Account aggregation was a catalyst for Open Banking and enabled Jason to bring his experience to the roll-out of Open Banking in the UK, Europe, Australia, and India. Jason now manages new markets and partnerships at Circit, where Open Finance is one of the key components to delivering trusted data to auditors.

Jason is a Director within Barclays UK. Before leading the Open Banking and Digital teams he has built up multi-year experience across merchant facing and proposition development roles within consumer credit and embedded finance. Jason is now responsible for the day-to-day running of Barclays’ Open Banking platform alongside digital enhancements and strategic developments which focus on delivering measurable customer and commercial benefits.

Jehangir leads a team with a remit to explore and experiment with emerging technologies that have the ability to drive business model innovation at Lloyds Banking Group. He previously developed LBG’s relationships with fintech accelerator programmes and early stage ventures.

Jehangir is a business builder with a background in strategy and innovation both in consultancy and in-house. Jehangir moved into corporate innovation, where he is a recognised thought leader who brings innovative solutions to life by applying strategic, evidence-based approaches to learn first-hand, reduce business risk and accelerate speed to market. Prior roles include Corporate Partner at StartupBootcamp and strategy consulting at Deloitte; he is also Vice chair of governors at Chestnut Grove Academy and a mentor to start-ups and social enterprises.

Jenna is a senior corporate, data protection and privacy specialist. With more than 15 years of experience across the UK, EMEA and APAC regions, Jenna’s wide-ranging expertise incorporates data privacy, commercial and technology related transactions including advising on AI, AI governance and DLT, digital assets, regulatory compliance, investment and retail banking, and investment management.

She co-chairs the Data Protection Finance Group, a UK network of more than 400 senior lawyers and privacy professionals working in finance across the UK. Jenna advises on all aspects of data protection and privacy with a specific focus on advising financial services clients. Her clients range from international banks to small asset managers, pension funds and fintechs.

As well as private practice experience, Jenna provides practical, pragmatic advice to her clients based on extensive in-house experience. Jenna has worked in-house for leading financial services organisations, including Santander where she established the bank’s data privacy legal function. Jenna has previously served as a DPO for a FinTech, Asto Digital Ltd., and Vice President and primary legal adviser for data privacy across at Columbia Threadneedle Investments in EMEA (part of Ameriprise Financial Inc.) where she was responsible for the implementation of their GDPR programme.

As well as the Co-Chair of the Data Protection Finance Group, DPFG, Jenna is a member of IRSG, SASIG, IAPP Women Leading Privacy and Women in Privacy and a speaker at international conferences, panel discussions and other events.

Jim Wadsworth leads the expansion of Konsentus Group’s award-winning technology solutions into international markets. Konsentus is a leading open ecosystem regtech provider.

Jim has more than 20 years’ experience in the payments industry, and he has been at the forefront of the global Open Banking movement since 2018. He started Mastercard’s journey into Open Banking, including playing a major role in their acquisitions of Finicity in the US and Aiia in Europe. Prior to his Open Banking role at Mastercard, he led the Vocalink UK product team, as part of which he established the group which created some cutting-edge anti-financial crime solutions.

Earlier in his career Jim created, built and managed progressive and innovative payments products and services at major brands such as Vodafone, JP Morgan and Barclaycard.

Joe is a business development and marketing professional with experience in the professional services, legal services and FinTech sectors working across the North since 2016. Joe joined FinTech North as its first full-time employee in September 2019, having previously worked for the Institute of Directors and a global law firm. As Engagement Manager for FinTech North, Joemanages all event, marketing and commercial activity, and regularly supports Northern FinTech entrepreneurs and new market entrants.

FinTech North is the focal point for FinTech in the Northern Powerhouse. Since 2016 FinTech North has brought the northern FinTech community together via events, conferences, virtual seminars and trade missions. FinTech North’s objectives are to bring the community together, to develop the northern FinTech economy, align with development of the national FinTech sector and to promote the North of England as an international destination for FinTech.

Head of Product – Finance, Payments & Retail

2 Years with Constellation Automotive Group

Previous experience – 2 years @ Deloitte as a Manager in their Strategy practice, 2 years at Volkswagen Financial Services as a Product Owner, c.6 years @ Leaseplan in various roles spanning from operations to strategy

Qualifications – MBA

John Penrose has been the Conservative Member of Parliament for Weston-super-Mare since 2005. In Government, John has been Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury, Minister of State in the Northern Ireland Office, Constitution Minister in the Cabinet Office, and Tourism & Heritage Minister in the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport. More recently, John also served as the Prime Minister’s Anti-Corruption Champion from 2017-2022. Prior to entering politics, John had an extensive business career, which included roles at JP Morgan, McKinsey, Thompson and Pearson PLC. John also helped found Credit Market Analysis (publishing credit data for financial firms). John chairs the Conservative Policy Forum.

Jonas has over 20 years of experience in software, providing innovative solutions with high business value within Core Banking. Today, he is leading the strategic initiative to expand the BankID solution into new markets. BankID is the leading digital identity solution in Sweden with over 8 million users and over 6 billion transaction last year.

Julian is a strategy consultant with over 25 years experience in financial and professional services. Prior to joining Whitecap in 2012 he was marketing director at HML, the UK’s largest outsourced mortgage servicer (now part of Computershare), and his career has also included roles at Boston Consulting Group, Nationwide Building Society, Mortgages plc, and Merrill Lynch.

Whitecap Consulting is a strategy consultancy based in Leeds, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Bristol, Newcastle and Birmingham. It is particularly active in high growth sectors. Whitecap’s financial services clients have included banks, building societies, technology providers, FinTechs, retailers, universities, and various firms in the intermediary financial services market.

Whitecap is involved in multiple regional FinTech and LegalTech ecosystems. The firm is directly involved in FinTech North and FinTech West, both of which it helped create and now helps coordinate. Via these initiatives, Julian is also involved in the FinTech National Network which was created in 2019 to help link the national Fintech sector across the UK. Whitecap also leads the LegalTech in Leeds initiative, which is a regional LegalTech community in the Leeds City Region which is linked to various national initiatives.

Julian is currently studying for a DBA (Professional Doctorate), focusing on strategy and innovation in financial services. He also sits on a number of advisory boards and steering groups relating to FinTech, LegalTech and innovation.

Karan Johal’s distinguished career includes working with companies such as Feast HQ, Flubit and Checkout.com. At Checkout.com, he served as the VP of Business Development, overseeing the sales of international payment processing solutions and spearheading the company’s European sales initiatives.

Now, as the Global Head of Sales at Ecommpay, Karan directs a dynamic sales team focused on expansion and growth across markets.

Karen Wall is the J.P. Morgan EMEA Payments Product lead for Open Banking & Value-Added Services for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) within the Payments & Commerce business. The Payments & Commerce business at J.P. Morgan combines Global Payments and Merchant Acquiring to provide integrated solutions to clients around the globe.

Karen has over 10 years’ experience within the Payments business covering both compliance and product domains. Karen currently has responsibility for the end to end Product Management for the Open Banking & Value Added Services products offered in region, to ensure J.P. Morgan Payments achieves market leading and innovative capabilities.

Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Karen began her career in Dublin, at Western Union and then relocated to London in 2016 with the firm before joining Revolut in 2018. Karen was part of the team that scaled its offering from a UK focused firm into a global brand.
Karen attended university at Trinity College Dublin and is passionate about enabling financial inclusion on a global scale via the use of technology.

Katrin co-founded FUNDING XCHANGE (FXE) setting out to use access to new live data sources and advanced analytics to disrupt the inefficient SME funding space by creating the first UK platform for businesses to easily access bank and non-bank funding solutions in one place. FXE launched in 2016, announced an exclusive partnership with MoneySuperMarket and was designated as an official finance referral platform by the British Government in November 2016.

Today, FXE is working with nine UK banks and 40+ lenders to help customers access SME funding solutions, delivering services to the UK’s largest price comparison websites and building marketplaces that are integrated into banks’ SME banking proposition.

FXE has pioneered the use of live, validated data sources to transform the underwriting of SME loans. By automating decisioning, FXE is reducing the costs for lenders by more than 70% and giving small businesses transparency of the options they are eligible for. With the advent of Open Banking in 2018, FXE is continuing to lead the integration of new data sources and making it possible for lenders to make instant lending decisions.

FXE is collaborating with Sage, Xero and Experian to demonstrate how access to transactional data is enabling the delivery of user-centric tools that enable small businesses to manage their cashflow more efficiently, build a stronger financial profile and avoid funding emergencies.

Before founding FXE, Katrin spent seven years at Bain & Company, working closely with banks and other financial services institutions across Europe. Prior to joining Bain, Katrin led American Express’ strategy and business development team in London.

Laura is a Product Manager at HSBC UK, overseeing payment acceptance products for commercial banking. She is responsible for managing and developing a broad range of receivables propositions that leverage the latest developments in Open Banking, Treasury APIs and card payments. Laura has been with HSBC UK since 2018 and is a Chartered Associate of The London Foundation for Banking and Finance.

Dr Lea Maria Siering is the Managing Director of Token GmbH – a payments specialist based in Berlin and London. Token is the leading open banking enabler for the payments industry and offers the best market coverage in Europe using its best in class A2A infrastructure that is powered by open banking and built for the payments industry.

Lea is also a supervisory board member, a member of the Digital Finance Forum at the German federal ministry of finance and the chairwoman on the Bitkom board for digital banking and fintech. Previously, she was CEO of the 2° Investing Initiative (2DII), Chief Risk Officer (CRO) at finleap connect GmbH, a payment service provider that is also licensed, partner at the international law firm Taylor Wessing in the area of Regulatory/Capital Markets and General Counsel at CrossLend GmbH. She is the author of numerous publications, in particular on regulatory topics as well as related to digitalisation, and co-edits the magazine “Recht Digital”, published by Beck Verlag, as well as editor of a commentary on the German Investment Act. With more than 15 years of experience in the financial sector, she is particularly committed to diverse corporate governance and sustainability. She is still admitted to the bar.

Lena Hackelöer is the founder and CEO of Brite Payments, a Stockholm-based fintech that utilises the open banking framework to offer instant payments and payouts across 24 markets in Europe. One of Sweden’s fastest-growing fintechs, Brite connects consumers and online merchants with fast, secure, and convenient account-to-account (A2A) payments.

A dual citizen of Sweden and Germany, Lena has more than a decade of experience in the European fintech sector, with a focus on payments and consumer credit. Lena spent more than seven years in leading positions at Klarna, where her roles included Director of Global Business Marketing and Director of Market Growth and Strategy. She also served as CEO of Qliro Financial Services (STO:QLIRO), a fintech offering payment solutions for e-commerce and consumer credit services, before founding Brite in 2019. Lena is passionate about building the next generation of instant bank payments with Brite.

Lynda joined Tribe Payments in 2022, bringing over a decade’s worth of experience in the payments sector across Europe and the Middle East, having previously held senior roles at Barclaycard, Elavon and Network International. She has a proven track record in product commercialisation and launched the first acquirer-owned Android based POS application across the MEA.

Having also built and led high-performing P&L owning teams, Lynda joined Tribe as VP of Customer Success before moving into her current COO role, in which she ensures that Tribe delivers a seamless experience to its customers. Lynda has also been named among the Top 25 Women Leaders in Financial Technology of Europe for 2023.

Marie is Raidiam’s resident Open Futurist, using her exceptional insight to help countries and businesses create opportunities in the emerging data economy. Marie is interested in the possibilities that Open Data ecosystems like Open Finance can deliver – and how we can get there. Since 2016 she has been bringing together the best people and ideas in Open Banking, Open Finance and Open X: highlighting progress, analysing the impact of new possibilities, and helping people to have the necessary conversations.

Marie was previously the founder of market intelligence platform, Open Future World. Marie also runs open-conversations.org where she curates a daily list of the most interesting news headlines and insights. This is an independent and free source of discerning information on progress in Open Banking, Open Finance, and Open X.

Mark Shaw, is Director, Global Commerce & Payments Strategy at Spotify, the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with 551m users, including 220m subscribers, across more than 180 markets. He is a recognised expert in payments, having spent 20 years working across the full breadth of the international payments ecosystem. He joined Spotify in 2019, having previously worked at Visa, Mastercard, Vocalink, Barclays, TSB and LEK Consulting, and holds a Masters of Engineering from the Universty of Bristol.

Mary has over 15 years experience in financial services, having worked with Equifax for 11 years, both in Australia and the UK.

Starting her career in Marketing and Product Management, Mary had a number of successful years in consumer finance, before moving to the world of credit reference agencies, where she kicked off her client engagement and sales career.

In Mary’s current role, she works strategically with some of the UK’s largest lenders to help them understand the value of various types of data in their business practices and has helped several of them to successfully implement Open Banking to support their affordability strategies.

Mat started his career as a hardware engineer in the telecoms industry before transitioning to finance with fixed income roles at Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley and then consulting for IFC/World Bank Group. His experience covers technology, capital markets, supply chain finance, investment banking, venture capital and private equity. He started HyperJar to give people a tool for easier and safer ways to spend their money well and avoid unnecessary debt, whilst also providing better data and finance solutions for retailers. Mat has an electrical engineering degree from the University of Waterloo in Canada as well as an MBA from NYU-Stern.

Matthew Hooper is a Senior Commercial Lead within Crown Commercial Services where he has been working with public sector organisations to support their procurement requirements since 2020. As Head of the Revenue and Recoveries category Matthew has been championing Open Banking for a number of years and released one of the first Public sector frameworks to have a lot focused on Opening Banking Solutions. Prior to this Matthew fulfilled a number of roles across Financial Services institutions in Commercial Banking and Procurement and Supplier Management roles. He spends his spare time with his family in Leicestershire, supporting Leicester Tigers and coaching his daughter’s rugby team.

Matt is Director of Financial Crime Risk & Deputy Money Laundering Officer (DMLRO) at Tide – a platform which provides financial services for SMEs. Tide has 550,000 members in the UK, with 10% UK market share. Tide also launched in India in December 2022.

Prior to Tide, Matt managed Santander’s Financial Crime Apprenticeship programme, focusing on developing future leaders within the world of financial crime. Matt has also held roles at multiple other international organisations such as Barclays and Amazon.

Matt has a passion for building financial crime teams by training them in a way that allows them to engage both the technical and creative parts of their brains.

Mirna Sleiman is the Founder and CEO of Fintech Galaxy, a Central Bank licensed Open Finance platform operating in the UAE, KSA, Egypt and other markets across the MENA region. Mirna set the company’s mission to revolutionize the financial services industry with an open API infrastructure that enhances financial inclusion. She drives collaboration within the ecosystem through embedded finance and the integration of financial services within other non-financial services, providing a seamless and intuitive experience for customers.

Before founding Fintech Galaxy, Mirna provided digital transformation advisory to financial institutions and government entities across MENA. She also spent a decade as a journalist with Reuters, Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal

Mirna has an EMBA from The City, University of London. She’s also certified in Fintech from MIT, Corporate Governance from The Wharton School and Digital Transformation from University of Cambridge.

Nadia Co-Founded the Harrington Starr Group in 2010; a leading Financial Technology recruitment firm. Having recruited in the financial services technology sector for 18 years, Nadia has been responsible for helping over 2000 people find jobs. As Chief Customer Officer, she runs the Podcast Series, ‘The DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) Discussions’, to share the challenges and successes of those driving equitable change in the industry. Nadia has written a book: ‘FinTech Women Walk the Talk: Moving the needle for workplace gender equality in financial Services and beyond’- and within it quotes 100+ of her podcast interviewees. Her campaigns for gender equality include the award-winning “19% List” that gives companies continual visibility of female technologists looking for work.

Nadia is Winner of Investing in Talent 2019 Awards; Most Inspirational Recruitment Leader; Innovate Finance: Women in FinTech Powerlist Judge; FinTech Magazine Top 100 Women in FinTech 2022; The Recruiter Awards: Recruitment Agency Leader of the Year 2022; European Women’s Payment Network: ‘Positive Trouble Maker of the Year 2022’. Nadia is an Industrial Fellow at the University of East London: Centre of FinTech; and a regular contributor to Forbes.com.

Nicola has been passionate about building and scaling businesses for over 25 years, from the early days of the consumer internet to today. Her career spans roles as Co-Founder, Managing Director, Investor, as well as Corporate Innovation & Transformation Specialist. Her industry focus includes FinTech, FMCG & Media. She lived and worked in the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, France and is now based in her hometown, Berlin.

She is currently CEO and Managing Director at Qwist the leading independent European Open Banking platform provider, with key markets in DACH, Spain and Portugal. Prior to this, she was Chief Growth Officer and Managing Director at OptioPay, an Open Banking Fin-/AdTech company, as well as in a leading growth and innovation role at PayPal in Europe. Nicola fundamentally believes that we need to use technology to democratise financial services. Open Data and data authorship, distributed data models and innovative embedded finance models are one way to move towards a more equitable future.

Nicola is passionate about creating positive impact in the world. She holds board positions in for-profit social impact businesses (Vested Ltd. among others), supporting female founders as well as solar energy company Wattz. She is also an advisor to impact accelerators and funds like Village Capital and Planet A Ventures.

As Open Banking Senior Expert and team coordinator, Nicolò is currently responsible for developing and positioning Open Banking strategies and solutions at Intesa Sanpaolo, the largest bank in Italy. This role exposes Nicolò to several challenges every day, dealing with a highly competitive market and negotiating with third-party players such as fintechs and non-financial service providers, in addition to fostering the digital culture within a territory-anchored giant. Moreover, in his tenure at Intesa Sanpaolo he has been working on the ideation, creation and launch of some of the most innovative digital products such as Parking (Parcheggi), enabling customers to pay for parking via Intesa Sanpaolo Mobile app, and the development of the first non-financial solution integrated into the Bank properties (Switcho) enabling customers to switch their utility bill in a 100% digital way. With an outstanding fifteen-years-long career path, Nicolò also owns relevant expertise in the Customer Experience vertical for Financial Services industry.

Omer leads the Consulting arm at Neudata. In this role, he enables data-owning firms to enter the alternative-data market and gain competitive advantage.

Omer has many years of experience helping companies launch their data-products to a variety of buy-side institutions in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Prior to that, Omer assisted firms monetise their data assets and create new revenue streams at the largest provider of data-driven public market research.

Native Israeli, Omer is fluent in Hebrew, French and English. He holds a B.A in History and Political Science from Tel-Aviv University and SciencesPo Paris, and an M.A in Management from the London School of Economics.

Patrick has been an award winning fintech CMO, board director and Chairman at some of the UKs most innovative and fast growth businesses including the UK’s first digital bank, financial advisory firms, insurtech start up now growing on three continents and the UKs fastest growing financial service review platform. He developed new models for marketing and advertising to capture the potential of the internet using data and behavioural analysis. Previously voted by Marketing week as one of the most influential marketers in financial services.

Paul is Chairman & Founder of merchant payments community, Vendorcom; Evangelist for the World Wide Web Consortium’s Payments Sector in Europe; Mentor at fintech Incubator Level39; former member of the UK Payment Systems Regulator Panel, the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s SCA Monitoring Forum, and the UK Finance SCA PMO Steering Group where he chaired the UK Merchant & Payment Gateway SCA Readiness & Engagement Task Force and currently sits on the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee for Open Banking’s VRP Working Group, Business Panel and associated sub groups.

He is passionate about the merchant payments sector and the benefits to be gained by driving innovation through collaboration. His work with Vendorcom ensures that all stakeholders in the merchant payments are connected and have access to authoritative, independent information on strategic and innovative developments, standards, regulation, and market opportunities. Paul is recognised for his broad perspective on industry matters as well as his independence, authority, and pragmatism in dealing with the increasingly complex changes faced by both merchants and solutions suppliers.

Priyanka joined TransUnion in 2022 to develop the strategy and roadmap for Open Banking Solutions and Services. Following our investment in Bud Financial Limited earlier this year, she is shaping the execution of our joint value proposition to bring the next generation of credit, affordability, fraud and consumer products to market for the benefit of clients and consumers.

With fifteen years of experience within financial services, delivering across distribution, products, partnerships and risk at HSBC, helping organisations and individuals realise their purpose and aspirations, Priyanka is a passionate voice of the customer and a well-rounded and inclusive influencer.

Raffaele is leading the commercialisation of Variable Recurring Payments (VRP) at NatWest Group.

A senior leader with over 10 years of international experience in the finance sector, Raffaele holds a Bachelor of Science in Accountancy, Law and Finance, as well as a Master of Science in Public Management, from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy.

Prior to NatWest Group, Raffaele spent four years at Simon-Kucher & Partners in Milan, defining pricing and commercialisation strategies for Italian retail and investment banks.

Rema is an accomplished advisory board member, leader and public speaker with over 11 years of experience within the Payments, e-Commerce and Financial Services industries globally. She has been based in Malaysia, Singapore, Chile and now the Netherlands specialising in go to market and business strategy, electronic money institutions setup and operationalisation, financial crime advisory and intelligence, audits and due diligence investigations for large-scale organisations.

Rema currently leads compliance and oversees the strategic financial products of Uber’s Payments operations in APAC bringing in $3.4B Rev across 9 unique markets. Concurrently, she is the Global Board Member and Chair of Women at Uber EMEA, an Employee Resource Group within Uber to empower women with experiences that further their advancement and development into strong advocates and leaders. Additionally, Rema is an experienced public speaker on embedded finance, payments and women empowerment.

Following a career in e-commence & Retail, Rob Levy has built multiple payment products for some of the world’s best known brands. Now at Barclays, Rob leads Product for BPF, the bank’s Point-of-Sale lending division as well as Digital Platforms for the retail bank and the group’s Open Banking business.

Sara Costantini, Managing Director of CRIF Decision Solutions Ltd.

Since graduating in Computer Science from “La Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy, and after initially working on IT projects as a programmer, Sara Costantini has gained extensive international experience in project and team management. She joined CRIF in 2000 and has been working in the financial industry for over 20 years. She was appointed Managing Director of CRIF Decision Solutions Ltd. in 2011 and Managing Director of CRIF Ireland Ltd. in 2015, with the aim of developing the CRIF brand in the UK and Ireland.

Sarah has worked with companies providing payments services to business and consumers since 1997, within those 26 years this has encompassed Service/Product development, implementation and operation all with an underlying focus on consumer protection and compliance.

MLRO and compliance director experience for a number of companies including a Money App, Youth education programme with a debit card, a major alternatives acquirer and emoney issuer.

Sarahs’ focus is to assist banks, fintechs, and scheme members to have in place services and products which protect against fraud, money laundering and abuse of the financial system. Protecting consumers and business in a productive compliant environment.

Sho Sugihara is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fuse by Pave. Highly experienced in finance and risk, Sho is passionate about solving systemic inefficiencies that drive exclusion. Having started his career working at NGOs, Sho studied at the University of Cambridge and worked at McKinsey & Company as a consultant for three years before co-founding Pave in 2017, and Fuse by Pave in 2022 to help drive financial inclusion.

Simon Inskip is currently leading the Embedded Payments product team for Business and Commercial Banking at Lloyds Bank. With extensive payments industry and product management experience he has led and delivered multiple payment product solutions aimed at start-ups, SMEs and large corporates. Since the launch of Open Banking, he has focused on how new technology can be leveraged by clients to build integrated, efficient and automated solutions. He believes we are in an exciting period of collaboration in the payments industry with clients, banks and fintech’s proactively engaging in innovation and development.

Stacey is leading the commercialisation of Digital Identity and Enriched Transactions Data at NatWest Group. Stacey specialises in delivering digital product innovations in the Open Banking ecosystem.

Stephen Winyard is a Director at Salt Edge – a leading fintech company in open banking.

He has a longstanding experience of over 25 years of co-founding and managing several disruptive and complex technology companies and has delivered millions in revenue and substantial shareholder returns during that time. Steve has been involved in open banking for several years and was part of the founding team of a UK-regulated PIS/AIS company.

In addition, he has been a Council member and key advisor to the UK Government with the Digital Policy Alliance that met in the House of Lords in Westminster, frequently.

At the moment, Stephen applies his vast expertise in building sustainable relations with financial institutions from various sectors to help them implement the best open banking strategies.

Steve oversees the strategic API platform for NatWest Group, setting the technical direction to ensure the bank has a scalable and secure base for the organisations varied API propositions.

A respected technologist with over 20 years’ experience in consultancy, government and commercial organisations, Steve takes a holistic approach to solutions and has an enviable track record of delivering
high impact solutions for the bank’s developer community.

Stuart Horton is the Compliance Manager for Snap-on U.K. Holdings Limited, and is responsible for firms regulatory compliance in relation to their Consumer Credit lending activities. Over the past 20 years, Stuart has worked for a few Consumer Credit firms offering products to customers in a near Prime environment from face -to-face lending activities to online loan origination. As part of that work Stuart has been involved in numerous remediation projects, which involved working closely with both the FCA and FSCS to ensure the appropriate outcomes were delivered to impacted customers.

Tanya, COO of Yapily, Europe’s leading open banking infrastructure platform. Previously the Chief Compliance Officer of Currencycloud (sold to Visa in 2021). Tanya is an M&A lawyer by background, has over 12 years of experience leading different functions in the Fintech and payments space.

Tom is the FinTech growth sector leader in the UK. His team helps FinTechs, financial institutions and investors on a wide range of strategic, operational, capital-raising and deal-related issues.

As part of his role, Tom helps FinTech businesses with their expansion and development strategies. He also facilitates collaboration between FinTechs and other financial institutions, leveraging leading practices and innovative ideas.

Tom has over 20 years of experience working with a wide range of financial services clients and was previously part of the transactions team, working on buy-side and sell-side transactions, both domestically and on a cross-border basis.

Tom holds a BA in Economics from the University of Warwick in the UK.

Tim Johnson is an experienced product and strategy director who was appointed as Head of Strategy at Tyl and Payit by NatWest earlier this year. Tim has 20 years’ experience in strategic development and delivery across international financial services and FinTech organisations. He is recognised as a payments, cards and open banking expert.

Prior to his current role, Tim spent 5 years providing strategy consultancy and product development for open banking businesses, including the OBIE in the UK, and globally with FinTech start-up Raidiam. Tim has a proven track record of delivering projects ranging from international acquiring strategies, M&A and partnerships. He has spent over a decade working with Barclaycard’s issuing, co-brand partnerships and merchant acquiring divisions.

Tim heads up D•One – the B2B open banking services division of the ClearScore Group. Tim is passionate about the ability of open banking to effect positive change within the lending industry, and such has set up D•One to help facilitate and accelerate open banking adoption for the benefit of both consumers and lenders alike.

Before joining ClearScore, Tim spent a number of years leading the HD Decisions business following its acquisition by Experian in 2014. Prior to that he spent his early career working in analytics at Capital One having previously studied engineering at the University of Nottingham. He is a keen sports and music fan.

Tom Bentley is the Head of Growth for NatWest Boxed. Tom is an expert in the banking and financial services tech sector, with more than 15 years of experience. He joined Boxed from Vodeno, a Warburg-Pincus backed venture, where he was the Chief Commercial Officer across the UK and Europe. Previously, Tom was part of Thought Machine where he was responsible for growing its business across Europe and held executive roles at Temenos, a banking software company, working with some of the most disruptive fintechs in the world.

Tom Bleach is a journalist at The Fintech Times, a global multimedia news outlet centred around the world’s first fintech newspaper. Having joined the company in 2022, he now covers sub-sectors ranging from open banking, artificial intelligence and paytech to financial inclusion and sustainability in finance.

Based in London, Tom also covers news from across the globe and has visited the likes of Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and Morocco to see how fintech ecosystems are evolving first-hand.

Victoria specialises in helping innovative companies navigate the politics and public policy that interact with their innovations, drawing on a career spanning nearly 20 years across the public and private sectors.

Her experience includes Director of FinTech Delivery Panel at Tech Nation, Head of Government Affairs for Innovate Finance, and UK and Brexit Public Policy Director at Aviva. She has also served as Private Secretary to the UK Minister for Industry.

Zhanar Samayeva is a leading expert in the implementation of national digital products in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Under the leadership of Zhanar, National Payment Corporation of National Bank of Kazakhstan is developing a digital financial infrastructure consisting of Open Banking & Open API Platform, biometric identification, consent management system, cloud electronic signature, etc.

Prior to the introduction of Open Banking, Zhanar participated in the development of GovTech. One of the successful cases of Zhanar was the implementation of National Digital ID during the pandemic together with the Ministry of Digital Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, where more than 10 million citizens (for reference: all economically active population or more than 50% of the total population) were able to receive public services remotely (more than 35 million services were provided using National Digital ID during the period since March 2020).

After the implementation of the National Digital ID, Zhanar developed an Open Banking model using a centralized consent management system based on biometric identification. Thus, Zhanar co–authored the concept of development of Open API and Open Banking in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2023-2025.

At the moment, in close collaboration with financial market participants, she is introducing open banking in the country.