Liz Oakes
Liz Oakes is Executive Vice President, Market Development of New Payment Platforms at Mastercard. She works with governments, central banks, regulators, schemes, retail and commercial banks on the strategic development of real-time payments programs across the globe, in collaboration with regional teams. Liz has more than 20 years’ experience in designing central clearing and settlement systems and bank payments systems, globally. This includes the governance and functional design of SEPA, Faster Payments and Bacs systems in the UK, and real-time payments systems strategy and design for national payments infrastructure operators in Australia, India, Singapore, Sweden and the USA. Liz has also supported the design and roll out of new payment systems within bank environments and is focused on the customer experience impact of real-time/instant payments, Open Banking and PSD2. Liz joined Mastercard in 2018 from McKinsey & Company, where she was an expert associate partner in its global payments practice. During her tenure, she served financial institutions, payments businesses and investors on strategy, design and implementation of payment systems, regulation including PSD2 and Open Banking, and supported mergers and acquisitions activity. In 2016, Liz joined McKinsey from KPMG, where she provided strategic, operational and functional payments advisory services to clients. She was heavily involved in the development of enhanced data and capabilities for real time payments and the implementation of the ISO 20022 XML messaging standard. Earlier in her career, Liz worked at Vocalink, now part of Mastercard, most recently driving product management, strategy and customer engagement. Liz holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Studies & German from the University of Hertfordshire. She lives in London.

Michael Salmony
Dr Michael Salmony is an internationally recognised leader on strategy of business innovations in digital and financial services with a particular focus on Payments, Open Finance, FinTech, Digital Identity and Electronic Money/CBDC. He is board-level advisor to major international banks, industry associations, regulators and finance bodies across the world and regularly helps shape future directions in all key decision making bodies (e.g. European Commission/ECB/European Parliament in Europe, and central banks from Japan to Uruguay and Kazakhstan). For the last 10 years he has served as Executive Adviser to the Board of Worldline Financial Services, helping to bring them from a local player to become the world’s 4th largest financial processor of transactional services, which handles over 17 trillion Euro per year. He also works with multiple regions where Open Finance is currently emerging - for example with the World Bank in Central Asia, as Board Member of Fintech Africa, as Advisory Board Member to Mastercard in Latin America, as strategic partner to FinTech Istanbul on all matters Open Banking, Platforms, FinTech, APIs, Neo-Banking, and further digital financial services. His views are much in demand as keynote speaker at international events and he appears on TV/Radio/all electronic media on advances in finance and is quoted extensively (e.g. Financial Times, Harvard Business Manager, New Scientist, The Economist and governments from Ghana and Malaysia). He teaches i.a. at the Oxford Business School on "AI in Fintech and Open Banking” and has published much own original work which has been translated into many languages including German, Italian, Dutch, Finnish, Polish, Danish, Turkish, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. He is extensively networked into the new financial services space and has the top 5% most viewed profile out of the 600 million members in the world’s largest professional network LinkedIn. Previous positions include Director Business Development of leading national central bank (Bank of the Year, Best Innovator Award). Before entering the world of finance, he helped transform companies and business models in many industries as IBM's Director of Market Development Media and Communications Technologies. He studied at the University of Cambridge UK and is married with two millennial children

Harry Smorenberg
Harry is Founder & CEO of SCC and is an international positioning strategist. He previously worked at Banque Paribas and ABNAMRO and was a director at two leading international strategic consultants. He is a leading contributor to innovation in both the retail and corporate payments and transaction space. He has a solid background in Cash- & Treasury Management. With that he is actively involved with repositioning the finance functions and the role of (new) technology. He is also expert in retirement management (pension scheme development and ageing issues). Harry is Founder and Chairman of AgingFinance.com.Next to that he is working actively on improving financial literacy and financial inclusion (a.o. solutions in areas like communication & education /budgeting/ personal financial planning solutions / pension planning). He also is very much involved withthe‘next generation developments of the way we will work and contribute to society’ (rebalancing work & income / working longer) and thus 'social innovation'. Harry is Founder of WorldPensionSummit and the GlobalPaymentSummits (EMEA, ASIA, Oceania). Harry’s latest initiative as founder and chair is the Transaction Innovation Forum in Japan. He is also a columnist and guest speaker, sits on several advisory boards (such as GFLEC- Washington / NIBUD - Netherlands / CAFF50.net - Beijing / P&I – New York) and regularly publishes in leading international media. Contact: harry@smorenberg.nl

Ruth Wandhofer
Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer is an expert in the field of banking and one of the foremost authorities on transaction banking regulatory and innovation in financial technology matters. After a distinguished career of over a decade with Citi, Ruth is now an i-NED on the boards of the London Stock Exchange Group, Permanent TSB and Pendo Systems Inc. She is also a Partner at Gauss Ventures, Senior Adviser at KPMG’s UK Banking Practice and Adviser at Coinfirm. She continues to focus on her passion of bringing the financial industry and the emerging financial digital ecosystem together. Ruth was named as one of 2010s ‘Rising Stars’ by Financial News; named in Management Today’s 2011 ‘35 Women under 35’ list of women to watch and identified as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance 2012 by the Treasury Risk Magazine. She received the ‘Women in Banking and Finance Award for Achievement’ in 2015 and in 2016, 2017 and 2018 she was named on the global ‘Women in Fintech Powerlist’ of Innovate Finance. In 2018 she became one of the Top 10 Global Fintech Influencers (Fintech Power 50).  She speaks five languages, has completed studies in Financial Economics (MA, UK), International Politics (MA, FR), an LLM in International Economic Law (UK) and a PhD in Finance (UK/NL). She published two books: “EU Payments Integration” (2010) and “Transaction Banking and the Impact of Regulatory Change” (2014), is an Honorary Professor at the London Institute of Banking and Finance and also lectures at Queen Mary London School of Law.

Masashi Nakajima
Born in 1958. Ph.D.(Economics). He is a professor of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Reitaku University, Japan. He had a long career at the Bank of Japan (BOJ). During his career at the central bank, 1981-2006, he gained a wide range of experience holding senior positions in various departments. He also had experience working for the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland during 2003-2005. He distinguishes himself as an author of Payment System Technologies and Functions (2011) (in English) and a coauthor of All about Payment Systems (2013)(in Japanese). These books cover a wide-range of payment and settlement system issues and are regarded as must-read books in this field. He also wrote a book about CLS Bank in 2016. The title of the book is “FX Settlement and CLS Bank” (in Japanese). This is most likely the first book in the world which explained the mechanisms of CLS Bank in depth. The book covers a wide range of topics such as, FX settlement risk, the reason why CLS Bank was established, the procedures and risk management of CLS settlements, the role of CLS Bank at the Leman crisis, the promotion of introduction of CLS settlement by the authorities. His latest book, After Bitcoin, which discusses the issue of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and blockchain technology, sold more than 50,000 copies and became a bestseller in Japan. As a key figure in the payment and cryptocurrency arena, he has worked actively as a member of advisory committees for public institutions, which include the Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan, and Japanese Banks’ Payment Clearing Network (Zengin-net).

Paula Buchel
Paula Buchel is an Associate Director, Financial Services and Payments, at Deloitte Consulting. She works with banks, telco’s, retailers, regulators, and financial market infrastructure entities, on a wide range of strategic challenges. These include digitisation, regulatory matters and customer strategy, as well as convergence across the payment landscape and the growth of mobile financial services. Prior to joining Deloitte Paula worked for 6 years at Standard Bank’s Corporate and Investment Bank, in global transaction banking and marketing. Earlier in her career Paula worked at Bain & Company as a generalist strategy consultant in multiple industries. She also worked at Investec Bank, in investment management. Paula received an MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand, and an Honours in Psychology cum laude from the University of Johannesburg. Paula is married and has three teenage children.

Piet Mallekoote
Piet Mallekoote studied macroeconomics at the University of Amsterdam. After a career of 25 years at the Dutch Central Bank he was -until his retirement in 2021- CEO of the Dutch Payments Association for many years and CEO of Currence (brand-owner of Dutch payment schemes, amongst others the online payment product iDEAL). He is currently a member of the Digital Euro Market Advisory Group of the ECB and a member of the National Committee for Financial Disputes.

Pieter Franken
Pieter Franken is a passionate global Fintech Pioneer and a Deep Tech Innovator with many industry firsts under his belt. Career spanning well over 30+ years in the Financial Industry, specializing in technology leadership, FinTech, Financial Inclusion, GreenTech, AI, Cyber Security, digital innovation and large-scale digital transformations. C-level and executive positions with industry leaders such as Citigroup, Shinsei Bank, Aplus, Monex Group, Union Digital Bank and ModuleQ, and senior advisory/board positions including Elevandi (SFF), RegGenome Ltd., EmeradaCo and SAFECAST.ORG, a global NPO critically acclaimed for citizen sourced, open environmental data. Pieter is a member of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) International Technology Advisory Panel (ITAP) and a Founding Member of the ASEAN Innovation Network (AFIN, now Synfindo), a nonprofit company founded by MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore), IFC/World Bank and ABA (ASEAN Banking Association) to accelerate digital transformation across Asia and other developing regions to foster Financial Inclusion and bridging the gaps between FinTechs and Financial Institutions and operator of the APIX Platform. In 2023, Pieter co-founded the Japan Fintech Festival in collaboration with JFSA and BoJ. Pieter holds a MSc in Computer Science from Delft University and currently is a Guest Professor and Senior Researcher at Keio University, an Adjunct Fellow with Griffith University Asia Institute (GAI) and MIT Media Lab alumni. He contributes to research in FinTech in Asia, Financial Inclusion, Citizen Science, IoT and Digital Assets

Steve Wiggins
An industry leader, transformer and innovator, my purpose is to improve outcomes for consumers, making a difference to the industry, organisation and people around me. I’ve led large transformation in finance, energy and payments sectors, bringing new innovation and technology to drive change that improve an industry in the long term. With 25 years’ experience in significant roles at AMP, Kiwibank, GMI, I’m also an entrepreneur founding two companies - a successful marketing consultancy specialising in the energy industry and an electro technology and hot water storage company that ran into the back of the GFC and taught me a lot about resilience. I’m also known for big thinking, governance, new technology, building capability, fresh thinking and marketing and sales skills with a strong business development background early in my career. I have track record of technology innovation, reading macro trends and changing market dynamics to ensure correct positioning to maintain certainty and direction. As CEO of Payments NZ, I am driving a second wave of transformation to empower Aotearoa NZ’s payments future. As the leading authority on payments, we are driving a collaborative, innovative and open payments network, working closely with our stakeholders and the wider payments eco-system to make the industry future fit, enabling the trusted transfer of value. I’m proud to be known as an authentic, empathetic leader and people reader, guiding and support as needs be and I love watching people grow as individuals, building confidence, skills and knowledge. An advocate for diversity + inclusion, I always coach, mentor and ensure teams consider diversity and inclusion in who they employ and in the work they do. When I was in HR at AMP, I introduced Equal Employment Opportunities. I have my mother to thank for early diversity understanding – she was highly accomplished across a range of disciplines and made such a contribution to community despite the challenging barriers for women at the time and it was all completely unrecognised. Off the tools, as the son and grandson of builders, I am back on the tools, tinkering with renovations and repairs and getting my hands dirty.

Xiaochen Zhang
Xiaochen Zhang is the President of FinTech4Good, a venture building firm to empower financial services through emerging technologies. He is also the former Global Head of Innovation & Go-To-Market with AWS. In this role, he led a team of both technical and operational staff in shaping AWS emerging technology and Web 3.0 related innovation offerings in the areas of digital assets, central bank digital currency, green finance and regulatory and supervisory technologies in supporting public sector financial institutions to achieve their missions in monetary policy, financial stability, economic growth, climate change and sustainable development. In the past 20 years, he worked with many portfolio companies in launching new offers, entering into new markets and building transformative collaborative initiatives with the most reputable organizations from all over the world to reshape the future of finance with emerging technologies.

Michael Moon
Michael’s career in the financial services and payments industry spans 25 years, with senior leadership positions in B2B corporate strategy, business development, product management, and marketing functions. Michael works widely with the global payments ecosystem across central banks and payment system operators, fintech, and technology providers (such as financial crime solutions, processors and networks). He advises and consults on some of the most challenging and important growth areas of industry such as cross-border payments development and national payment system strategy and initiatives. He has worked across the globe with extensive experience in China, India, the US, Europe, Australia, Singapore and Southeast Asia. Michael was formerly SWIFT’s Managing Director Payments & Trade Markets Asia Pacific where he led a range of SWIFT’s most important strategic payment initiatives (e.g., SWIFTgpi, real time payments etc). Many of these initiatives continue to reshape the payments landscape globally. Prior to SWIFT, Michael led group strategy and business development at American Express for its network, merchant and B2B businesses in the Asia Pacific. Michael holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management (University of New South Wales Business School). Outside of professional commitments his primary passion is open water swimming, and he pursues (mostly successfully) unique and increasingly challenging swims on our incredible, and mostly blue, planet. He has considered Singapore home since 2007 and has 2 teenage children.