Mr Elie Beyrouthy has been the Chair of EPIF since March 2018. He is the Vice President of European Government Affairs at American Express since June 2017, where he leads the company’s engagement with European Union Institutions and advises senior leaders on EU regulatory and public policy matters. Elie also represents American Express’ interests in several EU trade bodies and professional associations. He is a member of the EBA Banking Stakeholder Group since July 2020.

Prior to joining American Express, Elie was Director of International Regulatory Affairs at Western Union for 5 years. From 2007 to 2012, Elie held leadership positions at the World Savings Banks Institute and the European Banking Federation.

Elie began his career as an intern at the European Commission and the United States Federal District Court of Minnesota. He holds two Masters Degrees in Law from the University of Minnesota and from the Jean Moulin University in Lyon – France.

Fiona van Echelpoel is Deputy Director General in the Directorate General Market Infrastructure and Payments (DG-MIP) of the ECB since January 2018. She has a broad background in central banking, having worked in a number of functions in the market infrastructure and market operations areas of the ECB since its establishment in 1998 and previously for its forerunner the European Monetary Institute (EMI); prior to that she worked at the Central Bank of Ireland. She represents the ECB in various European and international fora and currently co-chairs the TARGET2-Securities Cooperative Arrangement and the European Forum on the Security of Retail Payments (SecuRePay) as well as being chair of the ECB’s Internal Crypto Assets Task Force. She holds a degree in Economics and Politics from University College Dublin.

Carriedo is Senior Vice President & General Manager at American Express and is responsible for the Commercial Services business across Europe. His team is responsible for delivering innovative payment and cash flow solutions to businesses of all sizes in the region.

Carlos joined American Express Mexico as a Strategic Planning Manager. He went on to take roles in various functions across the company including in Marketing, Product Management and Strategic Planning in Mexico, Canada and New York. He then left American Express to join a VC funded start up in Silicon Valley which aimed to bring un-banked US Hispanics into the financial mainstream.  He subsequently returned to American Express to lead the Commercial Payments business in Latin America and Canada before taking up his current role leading the European business in 2018.

Carlos holds an MBA from Stanford University, a B.A. from Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey.  He also represented Mexico in six World Mountain Bike Championships.

Massimiliano Alvisini is responsible for Western Union’s omni-channel (Retail and Digital) business in Europe and CIS, including profit and loss responsibility for the region’s 57 countries. Based in London, he manages an agent network of more than 152,000 locations and leads a team of over 400 people.

He serves as the CEO of Western Union Payment Services Ireland Limited (WUPSIL) and is responsible for implementing Board decisions, initiatives and maintaining the efficient and compliant operation of WUPSIL.

Massimiliano joined Western Union in August 2011 as Regional Country Director for UK and Ireland. In July 2012, his portfolio was expanded to include Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. In February 2014, he became Regional Vice President, Northern Europe, and in January 2016, assumed P&L responsibility for Spain, Andorra and Portugal. He was promoted to his current position in March 2017.

Massimiliano comes from a strong financial services background, with 18 years’ experience in the field. Prior to joining Western Union, he was a director at Angelo Costa for 11 years. During his time there he held a number of positions including Treasury and Operations Director for the entire Angelo Costa business. He was responsible for the day-to-day running of Angelo Costa’s business in the UK, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as its operations in Ireland. He managed a team of 200 people, and oversaw four offices based in Dublin, Madrid and Ghent.

He began his financial services career back in 1996 at Interchange, a leader in the foreign exchange business, where he gained extensive experience in operations, project management and business development.

Massimiliano holds an MBA from University College Dublin in Ireland and a Political Science Degree from La Sapienza University in Rome. He is an Italian citizen, fluent in English, Spanish and Italian.

Marius Jurgilas has brought his experience in both academia and government to the important role of Member of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania with responsibility for supervision, payment systems and research. In this capacity, he has forged a reputation as a leading European thinker on the future of banking, and within as the godfather of Fintech.

Prior to this role, he worked as an economist at the Norges Bank (NO) and the Bank of England (UK). He was Assistant Professor at the Univesity of Elon (USA), Lecturer and Research Assistant at the University of Connectitut (USA), and Researcher at the European Central Bank.

Mr Jurgilas holds a PhD and a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Connecticut (USA).

Dr. Hartwig Gerhartinger is a dedicated payments industry professional, an expert in payment services and e-money regulation as well as in anti-money laundering legislation.

As Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, Hartwig advises Paysafe on all regulatory matters, including payment services and electronic money regulations, PSD2 transposition and licensing. He has additional responsibility for governmental affairs, representing Paysafe with political stakeholders and regulatory authorities globally.

Hartwig is Managing Director of paysafecard.com, part of Paysafe Group and at the Boards of several regulated entities of Paysafe Group. He is also at the Board of Directors of the European Payment Institutions Federation (EPIF) and Prepaid Verband Deutschland (PVD). Further to this, Hartwig is member of the Payment Systems Market Expert Group (PSMEG).

He holds a doctorate in law and is currently a guest lecturer for e-payments law at Danube University. He is the author and co-author of numerous publications in the field of payments regulation and IT law.

Eric Ducoulombier is, since 1 January 2019, Head of the Retail and Payments Unit in the European Commission (DG FISMA). Before that, he was in charge of the Unit dealing with Inter-Institutional affairs and Planning in DG FISMA.

Eric joined the European Commission in 1992, after having worked a few years in the private sector (consulting, law firm…). He holds a Master’s Degree in Law.

Stripe is a technology company that builds payments infrastructure for the internet, founded by Irish entrepreneurs Patrick and John Collison. Sam joined Stripe in 2019 as its first Head of Public Policy for the UK and Ireland, and also leads on financial services and payments policy issues in Europe.

He is a policy professional with two decades of experience across the financial services and retail sectors. Prior to joining Stripe he ran a cross-sector committee of finance leaders focused on the future of EU-UK financial services.

Sam is a member of the Payments Board of UK Finance. He holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Oxford University.

TransferWise is a global technology company that’s building the best way to move money around the world. Whether you’re sending money to another country, spending money abroad, or making and receiving international business payments, TransferWise is on a mission to make your life easier and save you money. TransferWise processes £4bn in cross-border payments every month on behalf of its eight million customers, saving themselves £1bn a year in bank fees. It’s attracted over $1bn in primary and secondary transactions from investors such as world’s largest VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and Sir Richard Branson.

Prior to joining TransferWise, Arunan worked as an Associate Director in the Barclays Global Transaction Banking team focusing on correspondent banks in the Americas. He has also worked in a variety of Cash Management roles covering both banks and non-bank corporates.

Régis Massicard is European Payment Strategic Director for Ingenico Group. In this position, he is in charge of market analysis and strategic initiatives within the SEPA region. He is also following closely regulatory and standardisation initiatives impacting the Payment Industry, and is involved in nexo standards development. Previously, he held various positions within Atos Worldline, in strategic marketing, business development and product management roles.

Jean Allix (71), was appointed Special Advisor to BEUC in September 2016. He is dealing with both financial services and competition issues.

BEUC represents 43 independent national consumer associations from 31 European countries. BEUC acts as the umbrella group in Brussels for its members and its main task is to represent them at European level and defend the interests of all Europe’s consumers.

Prior to BEUC, Mr. Allix worked from 1990 to 2016 in the European Commission as a principal administrator. From 1990 to 1999, he was in the consumer department dealing with financial services and, in particular, all the preliminary works on the introduction of the euro. From 2000 to 2006, he was dealing with payment issues in the DG internal market working on the legislation about payments in euro and all the issues related to Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) such as the Payment Services Directive. In 2007, he moved to the directorate for competition always on financial services issues. He spent the last two years dealing with the Payment Service Directive (PSD2) and the Regulation on interchange fees.

Before joining the European Commission, Mr Allix had worked for a consumer association and for the French competition authority. He has been dealing with payment issues since 1987. Mr. Allix holds a DEA in Economics (Paris X University 1975) and is graduated from the Ecole Nationale de la Concurrence.

Mr Etienne Goosse is the Director General of the European Payments Council. He has extensive professional experience across different sectors of the payments industry. He started his career with the Belgian central bank. He held executive positions at Europay International and MasterCard Europe.

In his previous assignments, Mr Goosse’s responsibilities included franchise management, legal and regulatory affairs, stakeholder management as well as finance and administration. He also has an extensive track record in managing governance as well as European and public affairs.

Tyler Hand is Chief Compliance Officer of The Western Union Company, a global leader in digital and retail cross-border money transfer and payments services. As Chief Compliance Officer, Tyler oversees, among other things, Western Union’s programs for compliance with laws and regulations relating to anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, economic sanctions, anticorruption, and consumer protection.

Prior to accepting the Chief Compliance Officer role, Tyler was Western Union’s Global Head of Sanctions, Interdiction, & Anti-Corruption. Tyler’s responsibilities with Western Union included leading the company’s government sanctions and anti-bribery/anti-corruption compliance programs, as well as managing the company’s screening and interdiction processes in support of the company’s anti-money laundering and fraud prevention programs.

Tyler joined Western Union in 2014 after seven years with the Chief Counsel’s Office for the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) at the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, DC. During his time with the Treasury Department, Tyler served as OFAC’s Assistant Chief Counsel for Designations and Enforcement and Acting Director for Enforcement. While at the Treasury Department, Tyler’s responsibilities included developing and implementing policies related to OFAC enforcement and designation matters; drafting sanctions Executive Orders, guidance and regulations; and advising on large interagency enforcement investigations involving major financial institutions. Tyler also worked closely on U.S. and multilateral sanctions matters with counterparts at the Department of Justice, the Department of State and the White House National Security Staff.

Prior to joining OFAC, Tyler practiced law at Holland & Hart in Denver, Colorado in its Anti-Corruption, Export Controls and Trade Sanctions practice group. Tyler received his J.D. in 2000 from the University of Colorado and his B.A. from the University of Vermont in 1995.

Konstantinos is a business executive with over 15 years’ experience in corporate governance and regulatory affairs based in Brussels, and having specialized over the last 8 years in e-payments regulatory framework at EEA and national level.

Konstantinos has been working with Paysafe Group since 2015 on regulatory matters related to the offer of eCash in EEA markets and from 2018 Konstantinos is based in Dublin as the CEO of the eCash business entity in the EEA authorized by the Central Bank of Ireland. He is also Chair of the EPIF AML Task Force and represents EPIF in the European Retail Payments Board and related Working Groups of ERPB.

Konstantinos holds an MA in the Political Economy of the EU from the University of Athens, Greece, and an MBA from the Solvay Business School in Brussels.

RALUCA PRUNĂ works for the European Commission, as Head of Financial Crime Unit in DG Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union (FISMA). From 2015 to 2017, she served as Minister of Justice in the Romanian Government. Since 2007, she worked in several Directorate Generals of the European Commission, in various fields as fight against organized crime, financial crime, and free movement of goods. Previously she worked in the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union (2005-2007) and the Delegation of the European Commission in Bucharest (2000 -2005). Ms Prună started her career as lawyer in 1996. She is a founding member and former President of Transparency International Romania.

Kate Salottolo oversees the AML, Anti-Bribery and Corruption (ABC), and Brand Risk Management programs within the Global Financial Crimes organization at PayPal. In her role she is responsible for AML and ABC policies, procedures and training as well as analytics, risk assessment activities, KYC requirements and ongoing due diligence practices.  Additionally, Ms. Salottolo and her team partner closely with business and technology teams at PayPal to provide AML advisory and ongoing support as new products and services are developed and implemented. Prior to joining PayPal, Ms. Salottolo  spent over seven years leading various programs within the Financial Intelligence Unit at American Express, including the ongoing development and implementation of AML program initiatives, oversight of investigators in the FIU’s Strategic Investigations team, coordination of complex investigations, and conducting training focused on best investigative practices for new employees.  Prior to her career in AML Compliance  Ms. Salottolo worked as an investigative analyst at the New York County District Attorney’s Office and earned her law degree from New York Law School.

Noé de la Rubia González is a Criminal Intelligence Officer at Interpol’s Financial Crimes Unit. He is responsible for connecting Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs), coordination support and capacity building. Prior to this, he was a Team Leader within the Economic and Financial Central Unit at the Directorate of Criminal Police in Spain.

Noé de la Rubia González has a degree in law from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Master’s degree in Police Science from the University of Salamanca.

Mr. Eero Heinäluoma is a Member of the European parliament and a bureau member of the Group of Socialist and Democrats. He is the Treasurer of the Group, and a member of the ECON and the Budget committees, as well as the tax subcommittee FISC. In the Parliament, he is also member of the Russia and Turkey delegations.

Mr Heinäluoma is a former party leader and secretary general of the Social Democratic Party of Finland (2002-2008). He acted as the Speaker of the Finnish Parliament 2011-2015 and Minister of Finance (2005-2007). He was the Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Parliament (2015-19).

Loreta Liutkutė is a Vice President, Head of EU Public Policy and Regulatory affairs at Western Union in Brussels and a Vice-Chair of EPIF. She is responsible for Government relations strategy building, as well as engagement with the European and national Policy Makers, other financial services public and private stakeholders. She is Vice-Chair of EPIF (European Payments Institutions Federation), the EPIF representative at SMB ( Scheme Management Board) and ERPB ( European Retail Payments Board), the member of PSMEG (the Payment Systems Market Expert Group) and a Board member of the EPFSF ( European Parliamentary Financial Services Forum. Previously she also worked in a payments area for a global card scheme Visa as Regulatory affairs adviser and was actively engaged with European Policy makers, Regulators and Central Banks in France and Eastern European countries.

With over 10 years’ experience in payments, she established strong relationships with European Policy Makers and major financial institutions by providing them with a Regulatory advice on financial services legislation. She is particularly focused on Payment Services legislation, Digital Single Market, Data Protection, AML/CTF, Cybersecurity and Migration policies. During her carrier she also experienced as a volunteer Legal adviser in one of the biggest French NGO working with migrants by providing a legal assistance on the matters of Nationality, Asylum and Refugees status. Loreta holds a Master degree in European Law from the Lille II University in France.

Dr Dirk Haubrich is Head of Conduct, Payments and Consumers at the European Banking Authority (EBA). He leads the EBA’s work on payment services, consumer protection, depositor protection, and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing. In this role, he is responsible for EU Directives and Regulations such as DGSD, AMLD, PSD, EMD, IFR, MCD, PAD and CCD.

Previously, Dirk held roles across the private, academic and public sectors. He was a Manager with consulting firm Accenture, Research Fellow at University College London and the University of Oxford, Policy Adviser with the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, Manager at the UK Electoral Commission and Project Manager at the UK Financial Services Authority.

Nickolas Reinhardt is Co-Founder and Director of Afore Consulting, a premier European public affairs consultancy in Brussels specialized in financial services.

Having worked in Brussels for more than 25 years, he has built up an extensive network in Brussels and the key member states. Nickolas is a vastly experienced, highly capable and a leading authority on financial services regulation.

His ability to be a strong advocate with commercially astute and user friendly advice is based on his knowledge of the industry having trained and worked as a merchant banker and securities trader.

He has an MA in Political Science, Economics and History from the Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel, Germany. He lectured on EU affairs at the University of Limerick and Queen’s University, Belfast. Nick grew up in a bilingual home in Kiel, Germany with a German father and British mother.

Mr. Ondřej Kovařík was born on August 21, 1980 in Kyjov. He studied international trade, international  politics and diplomacy at the University of Economics in Prague and later completed an international program in public administration, regional development and EU programmes at the prestigious school for civil servants, the École nationale d'administration (ENA), in Strasbourg and Paris.

Between 2003 and 2010 he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague in the Economic Relations department and as Commercial Counselor at the Embassy of the Czech Republic to Canada in Ottawa.

In the years 2007 - 2009 Ondřej worked in the Office of the Government where he dealt with security, transport and coordination with the ministries during the Czech Presidency to the EU. Since 2010 he was the Head of Cabinet of the First Deputy Minister of Defence of the Czech Republic. After he was representing the Czech Republic at the European Defence Agency. From May 2013 until June 2019 he has served as Senior Adviser in the European Parliament and as Parliamentary Assistant to MEP Dita Charanzová.

Political Group: Renew Europe

Parliamentary committees: Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) - as a substitute Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) - as a substitute

Inter-parliamentary delegations: Delegation for relations with Canada (D-CA); Delegation for Northern cooperation and for relations with Switzerland and Norway and to the EU-Iceland Joint Parliamentary Committee and the European Economic Area (EEA) Joint Parliamentary Committee - as a substitute.

Jan Ceyssens is Head of the “Digital Finance” Unit in the Directorate General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union at the European Commission. He was previously Member and Deputy Head of the Cabinet of Vice President Dombrovskis and Member of the Cabinet of Vice-President Barnier, and Team Leader for Financial Supervision at the European Commission’s Internal Markets and Services Directorate General. He graduated in law from Humboldt University in Berlin and holds a Masters degree in European Law from King’s College London. He works at the European Commission since 2006, initially in the Directorate General for Competition’s Cartels enforcement Directorate and since 2009 in the Internal Markets and Services Directorate General.

Trisham is the Senior Manager Public Policy at Amazon, where he is responsible for delivering EMEA strategic policy programs focusing on payments, financial services, Fintech and tax. Trisham is actively engaged with regulators and policy makers across Europe. Previously Trisham worked for American Express in various functions at the General Counsel office in the UK and Belgium and was responsible for managing Regulatory Compliance Programs on payment services, consumer protection, AML/CTF and data protection in a number of jurisdictions.

Trisham is a member of the Board of Directors of the European Payment Institutions Federation (EPIF), attends a number of advisory committees and manages Amazon key financial services regulatory stakeholders in Europe. Trisham has expertise in Payment Services Directive regulations, Anti Money Laundering and Terrorist Finance Regulations, Consumer Credit and Lending Regulations and Data Protection Regulations. Trisham holds a Master Degree in International Business Law from McGill University in Montreal Canada.

Trygve has been working with public, regulatory, and industrial affairs within the payments industry for a decade – first as consultant for MasterCard and later as manager of various departments within the Nets Group.

Today, he is leading the Public Affairs department in parallel with the Branding, Marketing, Responsibility and Business Communications activities of the Nets Group.

Earlier, Trygve was instrumental in establishing the European Card Payment Association (ECPA), and is currently the Chairman of the European Digital Payments Industry Alliance (EDPIA). Trygve is also a member of the European Commission Payment Systems Market Expert Group and a member of the Payments Council of the Danish Central Bank.

Dr Krzysztof Korus is an attorney with a doctorate in law, and an economist. He is an expert on payment services, new technologies law, and banking law. Every year since 2015, he has been listed as a recommended lawyer in Chambers Europe in the Banking & Finance category. He is a pioneer in advising on regulatory issues for the fintech sector in Poland. He co-authored the "Study Impact of the PSD" and "Principles, Definitions and Model Rules of European Private Law" for the European Commission, and sat on the programming council for the monthly "Banking Law Monitor". He is a member of the European Payments Consulting Association. He has written several dozen publications, legal analyses, and commentaries and spoken at numerous industry events in Poland, Europe, the US, and Asia. He is involved in legislative work at the Polish and EU level.

Megan Bramlette is the Director for European Payment Acceptance and International Expansion at Amazon. She has nearly 20 years of experience leading global teams that innovate on behalf of customers at the intersection of commerce, payments, and technology. Prior to Amazon, Meg was a management consultant with the Auriemma Group and worked at Citi. She holds a degree in Operations Research from Columbia University.

Oscar has supported Trustly since 2009, first as a board member and since January 2013 in full-time executive positions. He was appointed CEO in 2016. He started his career at Goldman Sachs where he spent close to five years in the Investment Banking Division based in London and Moscow. From 2007 to 2012, he was a Portfolio Manager at Alpcot Capital Management where he was part of the team that developed and launched Europe’s first actively managed equity ETF. He holds a M.Sc. in Finance & Management from Stockholm School of Economics.

Mike joined Checkout.com in 2015 and is currently Chief Operating Officer. He has a background across banking and strategy after starting his career at J.P. Morgan. Over the years, he has been focusing on corporate development, building and scaling teams and processes, and aligning business, operations and technology. Mike has a Master of Science from Ecole des Ponts ParisTech in France.