Agenda: Payments Unleashed EMEA

Join us to shape the future of payments with unmissable content, meaningful connections, and industry-leading insight.

We'll kick things off on Monday 29 June, with a welcome reception at 12th Knot, Sea Containers, London, from 7:00 PM.

Tuesday 30 June, at the Hilton London Bankside, will feature main stage keynotes, expert panels, breakout sessions, interactive workshops, and roundtables, all focused on the most critical topics shaping the EMEA payments ecosystem.

Throughout the day, dedicated time and spaces will enable networking sessions, meetings with peers, speakers, sponsors, and ACI leadership.

We will wrap the event up with closing drinks in the hotel bar.

8:00 AM - 09:00 AM

Bankside Foyer
Lower Ground

Registration and Refreshments

Sponsored by Checkout.com

9:00 AM - 9:20 AM

Bankside Ballroom
Lower Ground

Welcome and Opening Remarks

Thomas Warsop
President & CEO
ACI Worldwide

Sasha Qadri MC
Journalist & Presenter

9:20 AM - 10:05 AM

Bankside Ballroom
Lower Ground

Keynote Session

We are proud to welcome Dr. Leda Glyptis as a keynote speaker at Payments Unleashed Europe. As a widely respected fintech leader, author, and advisor, she brings deep, first‑hand experience from the front lines of financial services transformation.

Dr. Leda Glyptis
Fintech Leader, Author, and Advisor

Keynote insights:
What’s shaping the future

10:10 AM - 10:50 AM

Bankside Ballroom
Lower Ground

Payments innovation: Bet on what's new or fix what scales?

As instant payments accelerate and fraud and liability expectations rise, leaders face hard investments choices. This panel explores which innovation to back, and how to prioritise for competitive advantage over the next 12 to 18 months.

MODERATOR

John Dawson
Managing Director,
Acara Strategy
Former Bloomberg TV Anchor

SPEAKERS

Philip Bruno
Chief Strategy & Growth Officer
ACI Worldwide

Simone Cortese
Chief Product Officer
Fnality International

Garreth Dorree
Managing Director
Vinted Pay

Johan Lindstrom
SVP Global Acceptance
Mastercard

10:50 AM - 11:20 AM

Bankside Foyer
Lower Ground

Morning Break

Join us for refreshments and networking, and the opportunity to connect with our sponsors

Sponsored by Paypal

11:20 AM - 12:00 PM

Bankside Ballroom
Lower Ground

Sovereignty without fragmentation: Can Europe take control and still scale? 

Europe wants more control in payments. Can it get it without breaking scale? We’ll unpack what to localise, what to keep global, and what "success" looks like for the Digital Euro, EPI (Wero), Qivalis (euro stablecoin), and the UK’s National Payments Vision.

MODERATOR

Dwayne Gefferie
The Payments Strategist
Gefferie Group

SPEAKERS

Nilixa Devlukia
CEO
Payments Solved Ltd

Paul Horlock
Chief Payments Officer
Santander

Craig Ramsey
Global Head of Account-to-Account Payments
ACI Worldwide

12:05 PM - 12:45 PM

Bankside Ballroom
Lower Ground

AI in payments: Optimisation or transformation? 

AI is already driving efficiency across payments, where does optimisation end and true transformation begin? As capabilities evolve from analytics to orchestration and agentic commerce, this session examines how AI is reshaping products, decisioning and operations, and what it will take to unlock full-scale impact across the payments value chain.

MODERATOR

Geoffrey Barraclough
Founder
Business of Payments

SPEAKERS

Lord Chris Holmes of Richmond MBE

Georgios Kolovos
Payments & FinTech Leader, EMEA
NVIDIA

Brenden Lane
Sr.Director of Product - AI Commerce
PayPal

Erich Litch
General Manager of Payment Software
ACI Worldwide

12:45 PM - 2:15 PM

Oxbo Restaurant, Ground Floor

Lunch Break

Sponsored by Discover

2:15 PM - 2:55 PM

Bankside Ballroom
Lower Ground

Banking Session

The always-on bank: Modernising payments without breaking what works

How banks modernise mission‑critical payments infrastructure to meet real‑time and resilience mandates without introducing new operational risk.

MODERATOR

Craig Ramsey
Global Head of Account-to-Account Payments
ACI Worldwide

SPEAKERS

Patrick Kipping
Area Lead Payments Transaction Processing
Rabobank

Gareth Lodge
Principal Analyst
Celent

James Winter
SVP Sales, UK & Europe
Nium

2:15 PM - 2:55 PM

Globe 2
Lower Ground

Merchant Session

Payments as a profit engine: End-to-end optimisation at enterprise scale

Explore how enterprise merchants uncover revenue leakage across checkout, authorisation, fraud, and recovery. Learn how journey‑wide optimisation and benchmarking turn payments into a strategic driver of conversion, margin, and growth.

SPEAKERS

Christian Schoenhuth
Head of Product Management, Merchant
ACI Worldwide

Rémi Canard
Group Product Manager
Checkout.com

Nick Fox
CEO
Axcess Payments Group Ltd

3:00 PM - 3:40 PM

Bankside Ballroom
Lower Ground

Banking Session

Defending the card: Issuing and acquiring strategy in the age of pay-by-bank

How issuers and acquirers respond as instant A2A and pay‑by‑bank challenge card economics, customer protections, and future investment priorities.

MODERATOR

Dean Wallace
Director, Consumer Payments Modernisation
ACI Worldwide

SPEAKERS

Otto Benz
Director, Customer Technology & Payments
Nationwide

Katya Karpova
EVP, Head of EMEA
Fiserv

Liam Spence
SVP Franchise Innovation
Mastercard

3:00 PM - 3:40 PM

Globe 2
Lower Ground

Merchant Session

From channels to journeys: The strategy behind blended retail and the payment evolution powering it

Discover how leading retailers move beyond omnichannel to create seamless blended journeys across digital and physical touchpoints. See how unified identity and payments boost lifetime value while improving efficiency and lowering cost‑to‑serve.

MODERATOR

Debbie Brookling
Director, Customer Success & Sales, EU
ACI Worldwide

SPEAKERS

Paul Fletcher
Principal Solution Architect
The Co-op Group

Paul Prodrick
Head of Strategic Partnerships Europe
Verifone

Henry Smith
Payments Product Owner
Screwfix

3:40 PM - 4:00 PM

Bankside Foyer
Lower Ground

Afternoon Break

Join us for afternoon refreshments and networking, and the opportunity to connect with our sponsors

Sponsored by Equifax

4:00 PM - 4:40 PM

Bankside Ballroom
Lower Ground

Banking Session

Beyond reimbursement: Scams, AI, and shared liability in a real-time world

What banks must do next as fraud scales through social platforms and AI, and reimbursement alone fails to address the underlying problem.

MODERATOR

Jackie Barwell
Director, Fraud Product Management
ACI Worldwide

SPEAKERS

David Bernard
CEO UK & Ireland
Equifax

Mathilde Bonneau
Director, International Payments Policy
PayPal

Damian Di Carlo
Global Technical Account Director
JT Global

4:00 PM - 4:40 PM

Globe 2
Lower Ground

Merchant Session

Preparing for the agentic buyer: Consumer trust, fraud and the future of commerce

As AI agents begin to transact on behalf of consumers, merchants face new trust and fraud challenges. This session examines how to enable agent‑initiated payments while protecting consumers, reducing false declines, and safeguarding growth.

MODERATOR