2021 Speaker lineup
If you are interested in becoming a speaker, please contact Omar Akbar at omarakbar@eurofinance.com.
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Adrian Lovney New Payments Platform AustraliaChief Executive OfficerAdrian commenced as the inaugural CEO of NPP Australia Limited in September 2016. Launched to the Australian public in February 2018, the New Payments Platform provides Australian businesses and consumers with a fast, flexible, data-rich payments system for making their everyday payments, and provides a platform for future growth and innovation. Prior to joining NPP Australia Ltd, Adrian was General Manager, Product & Service at Cuscal Ltd. Adrian was responsible for all product management and operational functions, marketing, sales, and client service. Cuscal was a founding participant of the Real Time Payments Committee and Adrian was one of several senior staff deeply involved in the design, development and governance of Australia’s NPP.
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Ajay Adiseshann PayMateFounder & CEOAjay is the founder and CEO of PayMate. Ajay has been at the helm since founding PayMate as a consumer-focused fintech before transitioning it to a leader in B2B payments in India. Before PayMate, Ajay had founded two internet start-ups and successfully exited one of them.
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Andre Chan Siam Commercial BankHead Of Innovation - SCB Saber LabsAndre is currently helming the innovation lab in Siam Commercial Bank, focused on bringing new forms of revenue models and value into the enterprise. Andre also wears the hat of a cloud solution architect, specializing in various implementations of AWS cloud services. His team explores and implements new technology stacks to catalyze and futureproof various aspects within the bank’s IT landscape against market leaders. Outside of work, Andre is a tech and cryptocurrency enthusiast, always exploring new applications and concepts of decentralized finance (De-Fi), blockchain development and finding ways to bring their ecosystem into the bank to innovate on new products and targeting new customer markets.
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Ankur Kansal RBL BankHead – Credit Cards PortfolioAnkur is a leading Payments domain professional with an experience of over 16+ years working with various banks in India. He is currently Senior Vice President at RBL bank, a fastest growing private Bank and has previously worked in leading Card payment organizations like State Bank, American Express. He has been leading member in setting up Credit Card business for the RBL Bank in 2014. His area of expertise is product and portfolio management for consumer and commercial.
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Arpit Ratan SignzyCo-Founder and Business HeadArpit Ratan is a serial entrepreneur who started his own law firm in 2012 and then Signzy in 2015. Alumni of ILS Law College and Pune University. Arpit grew his firm to the Top 3 in less than 3 years before starting Signzy to solve the large problem of regulatory compliance in the BFSI sector. Today, he leads Signzy's business and its expansion into India and International markets.
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Carol Ho VisaHead of Large and Middle Market, Asia PacificCarol is currently the Head of Large Middle-Market Segment in Visa Business Solutions for Asia Pacific. Prior to Visa, Carol had worked in Bank of America Merrill Lynch where she led sales teams covering financial institutions and non-banking financial institutions in global payments and trade finance. She has also held various positions from credit, corporate to transaction banking in JPMorgan Chase Bank in Asia as well as in the US. The early years of her career was spent in the finance and treasury space. As a senior woman leader in payments, she supports and executes programs in mentoring young talent in the industry. Carol graduated from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and is a Certified Chartered Accountant.
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Chavi Jafa VisaHead of Business Solutions, Asia PacificChavi Jafa is currently the head of Commercial Cards and B2B Payments for India and South Asia at Visa. A career Banker and Payments expert, Chavi has worked across geographies including New York and Singapore. Her experience includes managing various Cash Management and Commercial Cards products for Citibank globally as well as leading key relationships across Corporates and Public Sector organizations. Prior to joining Visa, Chavi was part of the founding team that set up IDFC Bank. She led the bank's innovation businesses including mobile payments and big data lending as well as strategic Fintech partnerships. Chavi has a Master's degree from Columbia University, majoring in Economics and an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, India. She spends her free time teaching graduate students at various MBA institutions, sketching and travelling!
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Clara Wang Bank of AmericaManaging Director, Head of Corporate Payables, Cross Currency and Global Cards, Product ManagementClara Wang is a managing director and head of Corporate Payables, Cross Currency and Commercial Cards Product, Global Transaction Services (GTS) Asia Pacific at Bank of America, based in Singapore. She has been with Bank of America for 11 years, with different roles including country treasury product management for China, and regional treasury product management focusing on Payment and Corporate Cards. Prior to joining the firm, she has had experience in cash management services, client solution delivery and implementation, product development and management in Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC China. Clara is also an active contributor to women development programs such as the LEAD (Leadership, Education, Advocacy & Development for Women) network within the firm and external mentoring programs. She is a Cherie Blair Foundation Mentor alumni, and had completed the Women in Business Mentoring Program as a mentor. She holds a Master of Business Administration (Executive MBA) degree from The University of Hong Kong, and a bachelor’s degree in International Finance from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
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David Newington AirPlus InternationalCommercial Director, APACDavid Newington heads up a dynamic team of payment experts for AirPlus International in 9 Asian markets including China, Australia, Japan and India. He launched AirPlus in Australia in 2011 to provide local and multinational companies with high quality and secure, travel and procurement payment services. With a career spanning technology, corporate travel management and B2B payments over two continents David brings a wealth of experience to corporate customers looking to develop payment solutions for their organization.
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Erik Ingvoldstad EedenBullCo-founder & Chief Innovation OfficerErik Ingvoldstad is an entrepreneur, creative leader, a strategist, and an innovator. He has background from creative leadership, as a writer and creative director at a global level. After over 20 years in advertising, mostly in the digital sector, he left to build his own consultancy in Digital Transformation, Customer Experience and Innovation. He has since co-founded EedenBull, where he is the Chief Innovation Officer as well as responsible for UX and UI for the company’s products. Erik lives and works in Singapore, and has previously worked in Norway, Australia and China, as well as overseeing work across the globe.
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Jakub Zakrzewski KrakenMDJakub Zakrzewski is a Managing Director at Kraken in Singapore, leading the company's strategic development in APAC. Previously, he was responsible for launching Revolut's operations in Singapore in 2019 and leading its growth in the region. Before Revolut, Jakub was Head of Growth at Easyship, a 500 Startups VC portfolio company that won Hong Kong’s Technology Company of the Year Award in 2017, joining as one of its early employees in 2015. Prior to joining Easyship, Jakub worked at Lazada (Rocket Internet’s most successful venture up to date, acquired by Alibaba for $1bn+ in 2016) as a first employee in Singapore, where he established business intelligence and online marketing departments at the company. He holds a Master of Science in Finance degree, awarded from ESADE Business School in Barcelona where he wrote his master thesis on "Cases of Angel Investing in Europe".
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Joel Leong AspireCo-Founder & Country Head, SingaporeJoel is a multiple-time entrepreneur with 7 years of leadership experience in financial services, crowdfunding, payments, and e-commerce. Proven track record of leading digital businesses and executing to achieve profitability at scale with a high integrity team. As Co-Founder & Country Head of Aspire Singapore, he is passionate about the financial inclusion of SMEs and is on a mission to reinvent banking for modern-day business owners.
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Joel Yarbrough RapydVP Asia PacificJoel Yarbrough is VP of Asia Pacific for Rapyd, a global Payments platform, and is leading the company’s value proposition and growth efforts in the region. Having worked in Payments, Technology, Banking, and Management Consulting across continents, he brings 26 years of extensive cross-disciplinary experience. Prior to Rapyd, he was Head of Product at Grab, Southeast Asia’s largest Tech startup, and then led Business and Corporate Development on behalf of GrabPay, the Financial services arm of Grab. He’s also a notable PayPal alumnus, where he led Global product Strategy, APAC Product Management, Large Partner and O2O Solutions, in addition to multiple global roles at JPMorgan.
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John Casanova Sidley Austin LLPPartnerJohn Casanova is a partner and has been practicing in the firm’s London office since 1999. He also practiced in the firm’s Singapore office from 2012 to 2016 and in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office from 1996 to 1999. He co-heads the firm’s EU Financial Services Regulatory group. He advises clients on a wide variety of U.S., English and EU financial services regulatory and transactional matters. He also advises on data protection and privacy matters. John works regularly with banks, payment service providers, investment managers, Fintech companies, brokers/dealers, payment systems and other financial intermediaries in the UK, Europe, Asia and the United States. He has assisted clients with setting up and operating regulated businesses and financial services joint ventures in the UK, the EU and in Asia. He also works with clients in responding to regulatory investigations and examinations. He has handled commercial transactions for regulated entities and acquisitions and disposals of regulated businesses and asset portfolios. John is ranked in Chambers UK 2020 for Financial Services: Payments Law, with clients describing him as “extremely knowledgeable, very thoughtful and hands-on.” He is also ranked in Chambers FinTech 2020 where the London team is cited for its “robust financial regulatory and data privacy offering.”
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Jukka Rinta National Australia BankHead of Commercial CardsJukka is a cards and payments professional with extensive experience in product management, development and distribution to a variety of customer segments. His experience over 30 years includes card schemes, issuing and acquiring operations, credit, debit and prepaid products, and a range of technologies from card and payment processing platforms to expense management systems. Jukka currently leads NAB’s Commercial Cards product team and is passionate about NAB’s customers and their capabilities to address wider range of B2B payments using Commercial Cards than what has been the market best practise previously. Prior to joining NAB in his current role, Jukka led NAB’s product development work to design and deliver NAB’s market leading ePayables capabilities. Prior to his move to Australia in 2007 he spent 2 decades at Diners Club in Finland with most recent responsibility of Commercial Card issuing and Merchant Acquiring operations, and at MasterCard as the Country Manager for Finland.
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Mostafa ‘Mo’ Sabet MastercardVice President, Product Management - Asia PacificMostafa 'Mo' Sabet is the Vice President of Commercial Products for Asia-Pacific. Mo oversees all Commercial Products in the region focusing on Large Market, SME and B2B solutions. He is also responsible for relationships with traditional and non-traditional players in the commercial payments ecosystem. Prior to this role, Mo worked on Mastercard’s New Payments Platform where he led the Consumer Applications platform team developing real-time payment (RTP) use cases. Mo joined Mastercard in 2011 as part of Mastercard Labs in the Innovation Management team and then moved onto Product Commercialization in digital products. Prior to Mastercard, Mo was a Mergers & Acquisitions Specialist for IBM. Mo holds a BSc from MIT and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame. He lives with his wife and two sons in Singapore.
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Nicole Ashong Citi Treasury & Trade SolutionsSales Senior, Commercial Cards Asia PacificNicole Ashong is the senior sales leader for Commercial Cards Asia Pacific, driving opportunities with both multi-national and Asia-headquartered clients and leading strategic initiatives across the region. She is part of the Asia Commercial Cards Leadership Team and has 10 years of experience at Citi. Her diverse experience includes sales and product management roles within Commercial Cards and across Citi’s broader cash management business. Before joining the Asia Pacific team, she was part of the Commercial Cards Sales Team in North America. In that capacity, she covered the Consumer & Healthcare portfolio and managed US-headquartered clients through all aspects of the sales process, from proactive origination and proposals, to product solutioning and implementation. Prior to joining Citi, Nicole earned her Master’s degree at Georgetown University.
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Olivier Berthier MoneythorCEOOlivier Berthier is the CEO & Co-Founder of Moneythor, a fintech company based in Singapore specialised in digital banking, data-driven personalisation and customer analytics. He is a seasoned professional with 20 years of experience in banking technology and entrepreneurship. Olivier holds a MSc degree in computer science and applied mathematics from ENSIMAG in France and is passionate about helping banks and fintech firms to bridge the gap between the production of actionable analytics and their delivery to customers via digital banking and Open Banking. Prior to co-founding Moneythor, Olivier was Global Solutions Director at Misys (now Finastra), a leading banking software provider. Previous to that, he founded NEOMAlogic, a company specialised in the development of innovative Internet-based front-end solutions for corporates and banks, and ran it as CEO until the successful sale of the company to Misys.
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Paul Nicholson CPISenior Content Producer -
Philip Lim UOBExecutive Director Regional Head Commercial Solutions, Cards and Payments, Personal Financial Services -
Richard Hartung TranscartaMDRichard has more than 20 years of experience in the payments and consumer financial services industry, primarily in the Asia Pacific region. Following work in retail banking in California and a short stint in government, Richard was part of the team that started up retail banking for Citibank in Japan. After moving to Singapore, Richard joined MasterCard and headed up Operations & Systems for the Asia Pacific region. He then moved to Keppel TatLee Bank, launched a new credit card program that became profitable in just over 1 year, and then managed the integration of Keppelcard into OCBC Bank as the Card Center Manager at OCBC. Richard set up Transcarta in May 2002 and focuses on assisting financial services companies with strategy, merchant acquiring, enhancement payments training, operations process improvement market research and other business practices. He is also a freelance writer for Challenge, The Asian Banker and other media. He is proficient in Japanese. Richard has a BA from Pomona College and an MBA from Stanford University. He is active in community organizations, including service on the boards of the Metropolitan YMCA and the Jane Goodall Institute Singapore and Global.
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Rohit Bammi NIUMGlobal Head of Institutional BusinessRohit is the Global Head of Institution Business at Nium, an advanced global payments platform redefining how consumers and businesses can send, spend and receive funds around the world. A seasoned professional with over 30 years of experience in fintech, banking and the financial services industry, Rohit has a deep knowledge of financial services and banking products. In his role, Rohit is responsible for driving Nium’s business strategy, sales and partnerships with banks and financial institutions to encourage the digitization of financial services by incumbent and new financial players. This involves launching new products, services and schemes that will create additional value to the banking industry. Prior to joining Nium, Rohit held many leadership roles in leading financial institutions and consultancies, demonstrating expertise in developing and implementing growth strategies across Asia, Europe and emerging markets. He was the Head of Asia for Earthport, Partner for Financial Risk Assessment at KPMG, and also took on numerous regional leadership roles during his twelve-year stint at Deutsche Bank and nine-year stint at Citibank. Rohit holds an MBA degree from the University of Notre Dame in the USA. He has a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics and Accounting from St Xavier’s College (India).
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Ruth Sy MastercardRegional Head, SME, Asia PacificRuth Sy is the Regional Head of SME Segment for Mastercard in Asia Pacific. In her role, she manages the Business card portfolio, and develops new products and partnerships to grow the adoption of digital payments and hasten digital transformation among small businesses. Her career experience spans consumer banking, business banking, investments, and most recently, payments. A significant part of her career was in management of lending products for consumers and micro & small businesses, where she championed financial inclusion across Asian markets. Ruth was born and raised in the Philippines, and now calls Singapore her home. Outside of work, she spends her time (and exhausts her patience) with her toddler, and whips up simple, one-pot dishes to share with her family.
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Sabrina Sng Discover Financial ServicesHead of Commercial Payment Solutions, APACSabrina is the Head of Commercial Payment, Asia Pacific at Discover Financial Services. Her current role focuses on expanding the use of Discover commercial suite of solutions and works closely with Franchise Partners and Net to Net Partners in the evaluation and adoption of Commercial payment solutions. She leverages best practices to help address common customer’s challenges and effectively manage change for these organisations. Sabrina has over 20 years of direct sales, sales management experience in commercial payments, corporate travel, and office automation. She has worked across other disciplines such as corporate administration, customer relations and global account management. Over the last 18 years, Sabrina focused on commercial card and business travel solutions. Prior to joining Discover, Sabrina was Head of Digital Solution, Commercial Solutions at UOB, Visa Worldwide as Senior Business Leader, Market Development and at American Express as Head of Sales for Global Business Travel, ASEAN & HK and Head of Global Client Group for Global Corporate Payments.
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Sandeep Malhotra MastercardEVP Product & InnovationSandeep Malhotra is Executive Vice President of Products & Innovation, Asia Pacific for Mastercard. In this role, he is responsible for product development and management, including commercialization of payment solutions that create a sustainable competitive advantage for Mastercard and its customers across Asia Pacific. This includes consumer and commercial products across Debit, Credit, Prepaid, Commercial, Payments Gateway, Processing, Acceptance, New Payment Flows and Digital Platforms & Labs. Prior to his current role, Sandeep was instrumental in defining and executing Mastercard’s real-time account-based payments strategy. From being business lead for the acquisition Vocalink (UK-based ACH infrastructure provider), through to the creation of Pay-by-Account and Bill Pay products, he has championed new payment flows which aim to introduce choice for stakeholders. Sandeep has been with Mastercard for the past 22 years, and has held a wide variety of roles with increasing responsibility. He has a proven talent for bringing innovative technologies to market, which require persistence and persuasion, by applying broad set of knowledge and expertise gained from working in various areas including digital payments, mobile payments joint venture (with Smart Hub in Philippines), network products and software development & solutions engineering arms of O&T. As an avid inventor, he has contributed to many enhancements to Mastercard's core systems and network. Sandeep earned a Bachelor of Science from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Master of Science from University of Missouri-Rolla, Masters of Science from University of Missouri-St. Louis and a Master of Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis.
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Soumen Sircar Singapore E-BusinessChief Operating OfficerSoumen Sircar joined Singapore E-business Pte Ltd on March 2, 2020 to contribute to the growth and development of their business across markets and products. He has been recently been elevated to the role of the Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining SGeBIZ, Soumen was Vice President and Head of Business Solutions for Asia Pacific at Visa Worldwide Pte Ltd. At Visa Soumen was focusing on developing card and non-card flows for businesses, driving client engagement, product discipline, new product development, multi-year planning and strategy, hiring and mentoring teams and helping curate innovative, digitized, future proof solutions. Soumen in his earlier avatar was a career banker for over 17 years working across corporate banking, institutional and transaction banking roles – leading teams and business across Asia Pacific. He had helped develop and grow business across all organizations that he worked with – Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong for over 7 years, J P Morgan Chase Bank, Mumbai for over 5 years and ICICI Bank Limited for just under 5 years – delivering client led solutions across the entire range of commercial and corporate banking products. Soumen and his family are based in Singapore.
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Tom Rafferty EIURegional Director, AsiaTom is Regional Director, Asia at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). He is an expert on politics and economics in Asia, with specific interests in regional geopolitics, public policy and China’s political economy. Tom is a frequent commentator in the international media, talks regularly at conferences and events, and has published on a range of subjects in relation to Asia and China. His experience and deep knowledge help organisations and businesses make sense of the rapid changes in the region. As Regional Director, Tom leads a team of analysts based across the Asia. He is responsible for ensuring the EIU’s analysis and forecasts for countries in the region are as accurate and insightful as they can be for clients, and delivered in a timely and accessible way. Tom is based in Beijing, where he has lived and worked for the best part of a decade. He joined the EIU in 2011 and prior to his current role was Principal Economist, China.
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Tridbodi Arunanondchai LightnetVice Chairman & Co-Founder -
Vasuki Shastry Chatham HouseAssociate Asia-Pacific FellowVasuki Shastry has worked in senior roles at the International Monetary Fund, Singapore central bank, and most recently at Standard Chartered Bank in London, where he was Global Head of Public Affairs and Sustainability. Shastry is a well-known commentator on Asian and global economic issues and is an Associate Asia Fellow at Chatham House and a Senior Fellow at the US Chamber of Commerce. His research interests are Asian financial integration, technology policy, ESG, and global governance. Shastry is author of “Resurgent Indonesia - From Crisis to Confidence” and his second book “Has Asia Lost It? Dynamic Past, Turbulent Future” will be released in March 2021.
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Vikram Kshettry VisaHead of B2B Partnership, Asia PacificVikram is responsible for partnerships with B2B focused fintech and technology firms in Asia Pacific. These partnerships help Visa and Visa’s clients deliver innovative B2B payment solutions in our markets. Successful implementations include solutions for bridging the gap in B2B Acceptance and to drive higher usage of virtual card solutions in the region. Vikram joined Visa in its Asia Pacific regional office in Singapore in 2008. Before joining Visa, he worked with ABN AMRO Bank in Hong Kong and India.