Kicking off the event, Wolfgang Ehrmann, chairman of the board at the EBA, Raphael Barisaac, global head of cash management and global co-head of trade finance at Unicredit, and Stefano Favale, head of global transaction banking at Intesa Sanpaolo, will deliver keynotes that canvas this year’s theme of ‘Payments transformation in 2021 – the road to success.’

This year’s challenge speaker has also been announced, and none other than the serial entrepreneur across payments, banking, and fintech, Nick Ogden, will take the stage to ask the controversial questions and push back on some of the industry’s thorny obstacles.

Headline speakers for the event include a swathe of heavyweights selected from leading financial institutions, regulators, universities, and industry bodies across the globe:

• Sara Castelhano, EMEA Head of Payments Product & Solutions, J.P. Morgan
• Eric Ducoulombier, Head of Retail and Payments, DG FISMA, European Commission
• Christof Hofmann, Head of Corporate & Payment Solutions, Cash Management, Deutsche Bank
• Marion Laboure, Lecturer in Economics & Finance, Economics Faculty, Harvard University
• Adrian Lovney, CEO, New Payments Platform Australia Limited
• Lee McNabb, Head of Strategy & Research, Payments, NatWest
• Jan Pilbauer, CEO, BankservAfrica
• Craig Ramsey, Managing Director Global Innovation, HSBC
• Tara Rice, Head of CPMI Secretariat, Bank for International Settlements – BIS
• Dirk Schrade, Deputy Head of Department Payments and Settlement Systems, Deutsche Bundesbank

The Strategic Roundtable ‘Future-proofing payment strategies’ is earmarked as a must-watch, with Castelhano and Hofmann in a debate to get the sessions started for the second day of the event. In addition to the impressive speaker line up, the programme is also smattered with a number of fresh topic areas, set to advance the conversation into new territory.

Dominating the payments news cycle at the moment is the concept of digital identity and its potential role as a cornerstone of digital payments. The European Commission is scheduled to deliver an announcement on a European digital ID by the end of May and alongside the push toward CBDC in the UK and Europe it’s expected that progress on this topic is a matter of high priority.

CBDC and the potential use cases it presents for cross border payments is also building momentum, but optimising the current systems is proving to be a monumental challenge. The push toward ensuring regulatory frameworks are up to speed with this innovation is becoming more important than ever and regulators have recognised the need to adopt a more agile approach to forging regulation.

Another new area the event is set to explore navigates the realm of Payments-as-a-Service, and how banks can create an ‘app store’ for corporate banking to customers customer needs. The session will consider how cloud, APIs and platformisation act as enablers to reach every customer’s individual needs, and what a digital payments strategy of the future should look like.

The complete agenda is scheduled to be released on Tuesday 1 June. Registration for this year’s virtual EBAday is now open, and if you want to get a head start on the EBAday content, be sure to tune in to the EBAday online webcast on Wednesday 26 May.