Matthew is Policy Director for Europe at Ripple, the leading provider of digital assets infrastructure to businesses. He is passionate about new technologies and believes that well-designed regulation plays a key role in supporting sustainable innovation. Matthew previously worked at the Bank of England, where he led the payments policy team working on innovations such as stablecoins and distributed ledger technology. Prior to that he held a number of senior policy roles at the Bank of England and was seconded to NatWest Bank's global treasury. He has a PhD in Finance from Bayes Business School and has authored numerous papers and blogs on financial services policy topics.  He serves on the Board of Blockchain for Europe and the advisory council of the Digital Pound Foundation.

Thaer Sabri is founder and CEO of the Electronic Money Association, the European trade body for the e-money industry, and managing director of payments consultancy Flawless Money. He is also senior partner of the payments specialist law firm FM Legal.

He has more than 20 years’ experience in the electronic money and innovative payments industry. He is a qualified solicitor in England & Wales and is also an engineering graduate, and postgraduate. He has represented the e-money industry in the negotiation of PSD1, EMD2, PSD2, 3MLD, 4MLD and 5MLD.

Thaer is additionally a member of the Board of the European Payments Council (EPC), a member of the EBA Banking Stakeholder Group, a member of the European Commission Payment Services Market Experts Group, a member of the UK Payments Strategy Forum, of the UK Open Banking Steering Committee, and participates in working groups of the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB).

Helmut is a senior expert in financial sector regulation, with extensive experience across banking, e-money, cryptoassets and digital finance.

He has contributed to major European and international regulatory initiatives, including the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), Financial Stability Board work on cryptoassets and stablecoins, the Basel Committee’s prudential framework for banks’ cryptoasset exposures, the Eurosystem PISA framework and the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).

Helmut has held senior roles in both the public and private sectors, including First Executive Director and Head of Banking Supervision at BaFin, Global Head of Regulatory Affairs at Deutsche Bank and senior adviser at Deloitte. He has also served on the Basel Committee, the ECB’s Banking Supervision Committee and the Committee of European Banking Supervisors.

Judith has over 20 years of experience in EU and national financial services regulation, and over 10 years dedicated to payments and e-money policy. As Director of Policy and Operations at the Electronic Money Association, Judith engages on a continuous basis with the EMA’s 100 or so members, building consensus amongst a diverse group of payment service providers to develop policy positions that will benefit the wider payments and e-money industry. The EMA’s members range from large e-commerce companies to the smallest start-ups, and are all all authorised e-money, payment or credit institutions established in the UK or EU. She participates in a number of industry and regulator-led EU and national working groups and steering groups focused on payments systems, fraud, payment scheme management, Payments strategy, transparency of payments, including the European Commission Payment Systems Market Expert Group, and the EPC SEPA Scheme Payment Management Board. Prior to her current role, she worked for6 years in the European Parliament on the ECON committeee, and then several years’ experience representing the insurance industry at UK and EU level.

Pia Sorvillo is the Lead Government Relations for the EU at the Electronic Money Association.

A qualified attorney, Pia spent several years in private practice prior to moving to in-house.

As public policy and government relations expert, Pia has shaped regulatory positioning and outreach strategy for prominent global providers of payment solutions, representing their interests with the EU institutions, central banks, industry bodies, national regulators and policy-makers.

Pia has worked extensively on the negotiation and adoption of major EU payments laws such as the Payment Services Directive (PSD) and its reviews, the e-money Directive, the Interchange Fees Regulation, etc.

An Italian by nationality, Pia lives in Brussels since 1996: she thrives in the multicultural environment of the capital of Europe and speaks 4 languages fluently.

Roe is a payments regulatory strategist admitted to practice law in several common law jurisdictions including California, New York and England and Wales. Roe advises payment service providers, e-money issuers and businesses on financial services regulation with a focus on payments and e-money regulation, digital operational resilience requirements and consumer protection. Prior to joining FM Legal, Roe worked as an in-house lawyer at one of the largest merchant acquirers in the US.

Giedre is a specialist payments and regulatory lawyer advising fintech, payments, e-money and e-commerce businesses on financial services regulation, with a focus on payments and e-money regulation, anti-money laundering requirements and consumer protection. She advises on regulatory authorisations, governance, outsourcing, safeguarding, payment system access, change of control applications and multi-jurisdictional product launches, and is currently supporting firms with PSD3 readiness and implementation planning.

Prior to joining FM Legal, Giedre was a regulatory manager at one of the UK’s largest prepaid card issuers, where she led cross-border compliance and regulatory change projects, including PSD2 and MLD4. She trained as a solicitor at a US law firm in London.