Next-Generation Payments 2023

Dr Norhana Endut is the Assistant Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia responsible for the Regulation Sector, including areas of Financial Surveillance, Prudential Financial Policy, Payment Services Policy, Consumer and Market Conduct as well as Sustainability. Dr Norhana is a member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, Financial Stability Committee, Management Committee and Reserve Management Committee. Dr Norhana received her PhD in Monetary Economics and Econometrics from the Washington University in St. Louis, USA and a BSc. (Hons) in Economics from Warwick University, UK.

Maha is Centre Head, BIS Innovation Hub Singapore.

Having been newly appointed, most recently Maha was Head of Department for Early and High Growth Oversight leading the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) response to the Kalifa review of Fintech. A Senior Leadership Team member, she is setting up this new department from the ground up as part of the FCA’s strategy.

Prior to this, Maha served as Chief Payments Officer at Pay.UK on secondment from the FCA, responsible for running the payments operations of BACS, Faster Payments, Image Clearing Services and related managed services.

Maha joined the FCA in 2017 to set up the first Payments Department and was responsible for crafting and implementing the FCA supervisory strategy for the UK Payments Sector. This included leading the implementation of the Second Payments Services Directive (PSD2) and Open Banking.

Maha has a keen interest in observing and participating in the many exciting changes that are unfolding in the financial services, innovation and fintech environment. She recently sat on the SteerCo developing the strategy and blueprint for the UK’s newly created Centre for Finance Innovation and Technology. She has a Degree in Commerce from Macquarie University and a Masters in Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Qaiser heads the Payment Services Policy Department in Bank Negara Malaysia. The department is responsible for the regulatory framework to drive the development of the payments industry as well as to preserve payment system stability as part of the central bank’s mandate. Current areas of focus for the department include regulations surrounding the large-value payment system, retail payment players and the money services business industry as well as strategic initiatives to support the central bank’s e-payment agenda and on cross-border payments. The department also houses the Digital Currency Research Hub which anchors the Bank’s work on digital assets and central bank digital currencies. Prior to this, Qaiser headed the Financial Surveillance Department, which undertakes macroprudential surveillance of emerging trends and vulnerabilities in the financial system and formulates appropriate policy measures to preserve domestic financial stability. He also spent a notable part of his career in the Bank in the area of micro-prudential policy. Qaiser joined Bank Negara Malaysia in 1999, and between 2012 and 2015 served as a Senior Financial Sector Specialist with the Financial Stability Institute of the Bank for International Settlements. Qaiser holds a bachelor’s degree in computer and management science from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

Pariwat Kanithasen is Deputy Director of the Payments & Fintech Department of the Bank of Thailand and is in charge of policies relating to Thailand’s cross-border payment connectivity.

He has recently led several projects on payment infrastructure linkages between Thailand and other countries in the region, including Singapore (the award-winning PromptPay-PayNow), Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. His current projects include bilateral linkages with India and Hong Kong as well as the multilateral “Project Nexus” with the Bank for International Settlements.

He is currently the Co-Chair of the ASEAN Working Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems, the Vice Chair of the EMEAP Working Group on Payment and Market Infrastructures and the country manager for “Project Nexus”.

Prior to this, he worked on regional financial integration, regional financial cooperation and also acted as the Bank of Thailand’s chief negotiator of several regional and bilateral Free Trade Agreements, including RCEP and AANZFTA.

He was also seconded to the IMF in Washington D.C., as an Advisor to the Executive Director of the Southeast Asia Voting Group, representing the interests of 13 countries in the IMF’s Executive Board.

Experienced Business Leader with 28+ years of experience in Technology driven businesses, out of which 25 years in Senior Managerial capacity. Held a multitude of CXO roles in both multinational and other reputed organizations in USA, Singapore and Sri Lanka. Functioned as a senior consultant to some of the leading telecom companies and also possess lecturing/teaching experience in e-business, technology, and e-security areas for MBA students to advice on new trends.

Mr. de Silva is currently the Chief Executive Officer of LankaPay, which he held since December 2015. LankaPay, jointly owned by the Central bank and all registered Commercial Banks in the country is a vibrant Public Private Partnership that operates the LankaPay national payment network to facilitate all interbank financial transactions.

He went down in history by becoming Sri Lanka’s first ever webmaster with the development of Sri Lanka’s first commercial web site http://www.lanka.net/ (1994) and he was also the engineer responsible for the establishment of the first-ever dedicated Internet connection in Sri Lanka back in 1995. Some of the major projects implemented under his leadership include the first online newspaper in the South Asia region (Daily News in 1995); first radio station on-line (TNL Radio in 1996) and first ever Wi-Fi network in the country. As a member of the local language workgroup of Sri Lanka, he contributed immensely towards enabling people to use technology in local languages and played a pivotal role in launching a Language Interface Pack in Sinhala and Tamil languages for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office in 2007.

Prior to joining LankaPay he headed the Sri Lankan and Maldivian operations of Singapore based ICT consultancy - Thakral One as the Senior Vice President. During his stint at IBM Sri Lanka as the DGM – Software Group, he was orchestral in introducing IBM’s software universe to Sri Lanka and taking IBM’s software business to new heights. Mr. de Silva also served as the Director - Enterprise Business and Public Sector at Microsoft Sri Lanka where he led the company through an unprecedented growth. His outstanding achievements at Microsoft were receiving Microsoft Gold Club Excellence Award for exceptional performance and the Microsoft Share Fighter Champion award for winning against competition.

An Old boy of Royal College Colombo, Mr. de Silva obtained his BSc. (Honours) and MSc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the State University of New York, USA specialized in Data Communication. He also holds an MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM) Sri Lanka and the distinguished membership at the IEEE (USA), Tau Beta Pai (USA), Eta Kappa Nu (USA) and Golden Key (USA) for academic excellence.

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/channadesilva/

Mr. German S. Constantino, Jr is currently an Acting Deputy Director of PPDD and concurrently a member of the BSP’s team working on cross border payment initiatives within the ASEAN. Prior to this role, he was assigned at the Supervision and Surveillance Group of the then Payment System Oversight Department and was one of the lead authors and implementer of the Payment System Oversight Framework. He was a member of the National Retail Payment System core team that won the Presidential Lingkod Bayan Award in 2020, who were instrumental in laying the groundwork for the retail payment reforms in the country, including the establishment of interoperable payment platforms PESONet and InstaPay.

He is a CPA, CISA and CRISC with a masters degree in Public Policy from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, Japan and a bachelors degree of Business Administration and Accountancy from the University of the Philippines - Diliman.

Mr. Gary Yeoh was appointed as Chief Commercial Officer on 3 January 2023.

With close to three decades of experience in the retail, finance, and payment industries, Gary brings a wealth of expertise to his role as PayNet’s Chief Commercial Officer, where he will lead PayNet’s relationships with all our participants.

Prior to PayNet, Gary held various senior management positions in leading and driving growth and operations. As a founding member of Boost, an innovative e-wallet application that offers a rewarding user experience for loyal customers, and the founder of the Berjaya Loyalty program (Bcard), Gary has gained recognition for his innovation and leadership. Whereas as Country Manager of Fave and General Manager of BNPL operator Atome, Gary was able to bring together companies from across the financial ecosystem to develop innovative solutions to meet emerging customer needs.

Gary holds a Bachelor of Law degree (Barrister at Law Lincoln's Inn) from the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom.

Oliver Manahan is the Director of Engagement and Operations for EMVCo. His responsibilities include leading EMVCo’s industry engagement strategy, optimising relationships with Associates, Subscribers, regulators and other key external stakeholders, and overseeing day-to-day EMVCo business operations.

Oliver has over 25 years’ experience across the payments industry. Before taking on his current position at EMVCo, Oliver was a Senior Director, Business Development at Infineon Technologies. Oliver has also held senior positions at Mastercard and Visa, working across Emerging Payments and Chip Initiative departments, where his remit included delivering EMV® Chip and Contactless solutions.

In addition, Oliver has held various chair, board and committee positions across leading industry organisations including the EMV Migration Forum, GlobalPlatform, Secure Technology Alliance and the US Payments Forum.

Oliver holds a High Honours Diploma in Computer Programming and Analysis from Seneca College, Toronto.

With more than 25 years’ experience in smartcards, Annick helps customers find the best secure solutions for their banking and identity projects, including innovative biometry and dynamic CVV products.

Fang Lu-Ruhbach is in charge of biometric payment card business as senior product marketing manager. After reaching her master degree at EE in University Erlangen-Nuernberg in Germany, Fang joined Infineon Technologies AG in 2001. Within Infineon, she has held different positions in ASIC product development, technical marketing and product marketing. In her spare time, she enjoys cocking, traveling and hiking.

Atul is the Head of Business for Asia and Australia for CompoSecure. He has more than 15 years of experience in smart card industries, working in leadership positions with market leaders, such as Oberthur, Idemia and DZ cards. He has been instrumental in establishing subcontinent operations in India for Oberthur and leading the innovations portfolio for Idemia. He has in-depth knowledge in the payment, telecom and ID verticals in the APAC region. His core expertise is scaling startups and growing established corporations.

Hari Velayudan is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at OneCard managing all processing and control functions including operations, service, compliance and collections. He is passionate about payments and has expertise in setting up, building and scaling operations and service in the payments domain. Prior to his current role he was instrumental in setting up the merchant operations function and service at PhonePe launching the UPI QR across the country and served as PhonePe’s Nodal Officer; built and scaled operations, risk, service, legal and regulatory functions att Citrus Pay - a payment aggregator that was acquired by PayU; and managed credit card and merchant acquiring operations at ICICI Bank, India’s second largest bank, where Visa awarded his team with the "Service Quality Award" for superior service amongst banks worldwide.

Cyril Lalo is a serial entrepreneur, inventor, and pioneer in smartcard technology. He has over 25 years of experience in the payment industry, including as CEO and founder of Ellipse. Prior to Ellipse, Lalo served as Worldwide Head of Payment Indirect Sales at IDEMIA. Lalo also holds patents for 18 groundbreaking payment technologies. In 2023, Lalo was named “Innovator of the Year” at the Asia Fintech Awards for his invention of the EVC® micromodule. Lalo also led his team at Ellipse to consecutive victories for “Best New Product, Service, or Innovation” at the 2022 and 2023 ICMA Élan Awards. He is committed to creating valuable payment products and to pushing the payment industry to meet the challenges of the ever-evolving digital sphere.

Hanspeter Jsler is Managing Director at Netcetera in Singapore and responsible for business development in the SEA, India, Japan and Australia markets. He heads the local Singapore office of the Swiss-based secure payment provider Netcetera. He has been in the financial industry for over 30 years and in payments for over 10 years. Prior to Netcetera, he worked for two different card issuers as head of development teams as well as for banks and software solution providers in various roles in different regions.

In Secure Payments, he contributes to the APAC payments ecosystem with his knowledge of secure card-based e-commerce transactions and champions adaptive biometric authentication. He supports issuers, card networks and merchants on the journey from single-factor to multi-factor authentication.

Gautam Pande manages the Mastercard Identity Check Program for Asia Pacific region. He has 16+ years of experience in managing consumer payment products. In his current role, he works with the payment ecosystem to use EMV 3DS authentication across a range of uses cases to simplify consumer verification & enable secure online payment flows.

Zarifa Izan Zainol Abidin started her career in Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) in 1999 and has experience in the areas of tactical and strategic financial intelligence and investigations, anti-money laundering /counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) policy and strategy development and spearheaded Malaysia’s National ML/TF risk assessments, BNM’s enforcement policy and key data analytics initiatives. She was also part of the assessment team for the Mutual Evaluation of Cambodia by the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) and served as the financial expert.

She is currently the Director of the Payment Systems Oversight Department, BNM, that is responsible for the gatekeeping, supervision and oversight function of the payments and money services business industry in Malaysia.

Since 2021, Ungku Liza has been the CEO of Boost Life, a leading all-in-one fintech app of Boost, the regional full spectrum fintech arm of Axiata. Her all-rounded experience, spanning Finance, Marketing, as well as Product & Operations enabled Ungku Liza and her team of hundreds to drive product innovation to serve and excite over 10 million users (and counting). Ungku Liza joined Axiata in 2010 as the Assistant Vice President (AVP) of Business Planning & Performance across Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Cambodia markets. In 2014, she co-founded Axiata Digital Services (ADS), where she was the Head of Finance. She was then appointed as the Director of Finance and Operations of Boost in 2017, and further channelled her passion in innovation and product development when she assumed the role of Director of Product and Marketing in 2019.

Anthony Thomas has 25 years of global experience in financial services across consumer banking, wallets and commerce platforms. Anthony leads the Fintech vertical at Berlin-based Delivery Hero, which owns food and grocery delivery businesses in 70+ countries since 2021. He has been the non-executive Chairman of MoMo, Vietnam’s leading e-wallet, since 2020. Anthony was instrumental in carving out GCash from Globe Telecom in the Philippines in 2015 and served as CEO of the JV with AliPay/Ant group until 2020 where GCash emerged as the market’s leading wallet and digital financial services platform. Anthony started his professional career at Citibank in India in 1998 and worked in the consumer bank for 17 years across Asia, Latin America and the US.

Monsinee joined Ascend Group as the Chief Operating Officer in 2014 and she has also been promoted to the Co-President of Ascend Money since March 2018. She is responsible for driving the operational excellence of Ascend Money as well as its overall corporate policy.

Prior to joining the Group, Monsinee worked as the Head of e-Commerce and General Manager at True Corporation Public Co.Ltd. She was later appointed as the Chief Commercial Officer of True Digital Content and Media Co.Ltd. Previous to that, she has held several managerial positions at Openwave System and Lucent Technologies.

Monsinee's strengths lie in her leadership skills and her ability to implement successful market operation. Highly motivated with excellent problem-solving skills, she has a deep understanding in various components that go into running and overseeing the¬ operations of a successful business as well as a vast experience of creating and driving content for the digital world. In less than four years, she has successfully expanded Ascend Group's business to six countries, while building up human capital and establishing a scaled agile operational practice across the region.

Monsinee graduated a Bachelor's degree, first class honors, in Engineering from ChuIalongkorn University. She was also awarded a Fulbright scholarship for her Master of Business. Administration degree at Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

George leads the strategy function at Grab’s Fintech business - which operates payments, lending, and insurance across Southeast Asia.

Prior to his role at Grab, George was part of the team that launched OneConnect in Southeast Asia to bring Ping An’s technology solutions to financial institutions here.

He started his career as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group working primarily with Financial Institutions and Industrial Goods firms in Southeast Asia. He also did a stint with BCG’s London office working with Financial Institutions in the UK.

Dr. Huang is the General Manager of Alipay+ Offline Merchant Services at Ant Group. Alipay+ is a suite of global cross-border payments and marketing solutions operated by Ant Group. It connects global merchants with more than one billion global consumers via Alipay+ partner e-wallets.

In her role, she oversees the global Alipay+ merchant ecosystem, including growing the merchant network, acceptance of international e-wallets, Alipay+ digital marketing solutions and promoting online-offline integration via Alipay+ D-Store. Through Alipay+, her team enables consumers to pay seamlessly overseas with their home e-wallets, while helping merchants drive engagement and growth.

She joined Ant Group in 2016 as the Head of Marketing and Operations of Southeast Asia for Alipay. In 2017, she was appointed as the General Manager for Global Merchant Partnership in South and Southeast Asia, leading the business operations and growth in the region to strengthen the adoption of Alipay among merchants. In this role, Dr. Huang and her team have helped businesses connect with Chinese tourists through targeted marketing outreach via the Alipay platform, and at the same time, provided Chinese tourists with a seamless payment and lifestyle experience abroad.

With the launch of Alipay+, a suite of global cross-border digital payments and marketing solutions operated by Ant Group, Dr. Huang’s role expanded to drive the merchant adoption of Alipay+ solutions, both online and offline, in the South and Southeast region.

Dr. Huang also leads the global efforts in digitalizing merchant businesses leveraging the Alipay+ D-store marketing solution, and is responsible for the growth of ecosystem partners. Prior to Ant Group, Dr. Huang has had over 15 years of experience in travel and tourism, hospitality and payments sectors. Her expertise lays in regional business management, business development, marketing and partnerships. Once an entrepreneur herself, Dr. Huang has broader interests in innovation, technology development and marketing strategy.

Dr. Huang holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from Leiden University and in 2015, she graduated with a doctorate degree in Hotel and Tourism Management from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Jeevan Victor is Head, Digital Strategy & Business Enablement, Virtual Banking & Payments, at Maybank Group. He is currently responsible for the development and implementation of digital strategy, performance management and analytics for the Malaysian retail segment with more than 15 years of experience spanning banking and financial services, including banking supervision, risk management, audit & management consulting.

Suhaimi Ali has 25 years of experience as a central banker. He currently oversees the Financial Development and Innovation, Islamic Finance, as well as Financial Inclusion departments. Throughout his career with BNM, he has served in various areas which include financial sector development, regulation and supervision, strategic planning, consumer protection, market conduct, international negotiations digital and cyber strategies in IT services, as well as in the Governor's Office. In his previous role as the Director of the Financial Development and Innovation, he was responsible for the development of the financial sector and payments systems, as well as to drive digital innovation within the sector. He also recently led the development of the Financial Sector Blueprint 2022 – 2026. Suhaimi Ali graduate from the University of Notre Dame, United States of America with a Bachelor of Business Administration (Accounting).

Sonja is an Adviser at the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub (BISIH) Singapore leading the Hub’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) work. In this position, Sonja co-leads project Mariana and leads the post- Dunbar multi-lateral CBDC arrangement work. Sonja is seconded from the Monetary Authority of Singapore while on leave from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

At the IMF, Sonja worked as Economist and Digital Expert on Transformative Technologies. In that position, she provided capacity building, policy recommendations and technical advice to IMF member countries on digital currencies, including CBDCs. In addition to numerous analytical and research papers on financial technology and digital currencies, she also contributed to the analytical work for the G20 agenda to enhance cross-border payments. Immediately prior to joining the BIS, Sonja worked as Market Infrastructure Expert on the digital euro investigation phase at the European Central Bank (ECB).

Sonja holds an MA from Bonn University and an MSc from Georgetown University.

Mr. Pontakorn Mekintarangkoon, a seasoned professional in the field, currently serves as a Senior Technical Specialist at the Bank of Thailand, dedicated to the research and development of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) projects. With an impressive academic background, Mr. Mekintarangkoon holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, which serves as a strong foundation for his expertise in this dynamic field.

With a career spanning three years in CBDC research and development, Mr. Mekintarangkoon plays a vital role in project analysis, design, and the provision of technical solutions for both domestic and international CBDC initiatives undertaken by the Bank of Thailand. His previous experience as a software developer in various tech startups has honed his skills and contributed to his remarkable journey in the realm of CBDCs. Notably, he began his CBDC journey as a developer on the cross-border CBDC component of Project Inthanon-LionRock Phase 2 in 2018, and his extensive technical expertise continues to drive the progress of the Bank of Thailand's CBDC projects.

Romain Zanolo is the Managing Director for the APAC Financial Institutions (FI) business at IDEMIA, and is currently based in Singapore. He oversees the overall management of the APAC FI business, P&L as well as regional corporate strategies. During his years at IDEMIA, Romain has led the successful sales and implementation of several projects with banks and fintechs alike.

On top of Romain’s expertise in the payment industry, he has an extensive experience in corporate financial advisory, including financial modeling, transaction support and strategic consulting.

Prior to his current role, Romain was based in Hong Kong, as APAC Deputy Regional Director for Oberthur Technologies (now IDEMIA), where he looked after strategic marketing, pre-sales of advanced fintech offers and pricing as well as bid management. Prior to this, Romain lived in Paris and Tokyo, as Strategy and M&A project manager for IDEMIA and concluded several acquisitions for the group. He started his career in corporate finance consulting and worked on the merger of three airlines to launch HOP! Airline (by Air France).

Romain is also a FinTech start-up mentor at F10 in Singapore. He has been co-leading IDEMIA submission for the MAS Global CBDC Challenge that has been shortlisted among the finalists. He holds two Masters Degrees; in Management from ESCP Europe and in Engineering & Applied Mathematics from CentraleSupélec, France.

Ritchie is the Senior Director of Business Development at Red Date Technology and currently based in Hong Kong. With over 25+ years of transformation solution consulting experiences in the space of IT, Web 3.0, Cloud and Blockchain Sales & Marketing, Corporate Operation, Finance and Customer Engagement, he focuses on managing the growth of the next generation of a signature payment infrastructure – Universal Digital Payment Network (UDPN) and lead the strategy of building up the eco-system.

Prior to his role in Red Date, Ritchie had solid experience in MNC company like Oracle, IBM, Cognizant, Thomas Reuters … etc. With his wide range of experience in transforming the traditional business model into a digital-driven model in multiple industry like Payment, Finance, Retail, Supply Chain, Manufacture, Government and Public Sector. His core expertise is to proactively spot out emerging opportunities and establishing the path to capitalize on these opportunities; translates ideas into results. Plus a highly commercially driven and able to accurately assess the viability of development opportunities.

Dmitriy has over a decade of experience in the IT field, with over five years of experience in distributed systems, payment systems and blockchain. As the CEO of SORAMITSU labs, Mr Creed has important oversight contributing to develop extremely safe and efficient end-to-end solutions based on cutting-edge distributed ledger technology. SORAMITSU is a trusted collaborator of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) as well as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), having been tasked to carry out Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) feasibility research in Vietnam, Fiji, the Philippines, and Laos. SORAMITSU has been recognised with a 2020 Global FinTech & RegTech Award and a 2021 Japan Financial Innovation Award and was selected as a finalist in the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Global CBDC Challenge and signed an MOU with the Bank of the Lao PDR to launch a CBDC PoC. Mr Creed is also a teacher at the Innopolis University covering DevOps, infrastructure and distributed systems.

SinChee has a payments industry track record working from market leaders in Asia-Pacific including Mastercard, Ingenico, Thales, and Entrust Datacard. He is currently a Senior Advisor at Bitt, one of the world’s most experienced solutions providers for digital currencies. In Asia-Pacific, SinChee reports the Bitt team as they integrate central banks, financial institutions and financial ecosystem participants worldwide with the new era of secure digital currency solutions, including advisory, digital currency infrastructure and management applications. Sin Chee received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from King's College London, University of London in UK.