Next-Generation Payments 2026

Atty. Bridget Rose M. Mesina-Romero is the Director of the Payments Policy and Development Department (PPDD) of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, primarily charged with promoting the safety, efficiency, reliability, inclusivity and affordability of payment systems in the Philippines.

Atty. Romero leads a team which focuses on the formulation of policies in support of the BSP’s mandate under the National Payment Systems Act; the implementation of payments development initiatives in order to accelerate nationwide adoption of digital payments; and the periodic monitoring and measurement of the effectiveness of said policies and progress of various initiatives using select payments indicators. She also leads

Cesar heads the Program Advocacy Group of the Financial Inclusion Office (FIO) at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). He is involved in engaging with various stakeholders and policy formulation to promote financial inclusion and financial health and make financial services accessible and affordable to all Filipinos.

He has 20 years of central banking experience, of which 12 years were spent as a technical officer for the Monetary Board, the governing body of the BSP.

He trained with the Bank of England, Deutsche Bundesbank, the Netherlands Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is a regular speaker in domestic and international fora.

Isvary is the Asia Lead at the UN-based Better than Cash Alliance, where she overseas advisory and advocacy initiatives with Governments, companies and international organizations to enable responsible digitization of payments across Asia-Pacific. She also leads Alliance’s thematic work on Climate globally. Over the last 15 years, she has helped to shape economic and development policy in her prior role at the Singapore Government and more recently with a focus on digital financial inclusion in private sector consulting and at the United Nations. She holds a dual-degree Masters in Public Policy and Affairs from Sciences Po Paris and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore.

Mr. German S. Constantino, Jr is the Deputy Director of Payments Policy Group of the Payments Policy and Development Department 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.

Paul Albano is a leader whose career journey is nothing short of inspiring. With nearly three decades of experience in business growth, he has established a remarkable track record of excellence, leadership, and mentorship.

As the current General Manager of GCash for Business, he spearheads innovation and expands digital financial solutions across all business segments including the Public Sector. Prior to this role, he was the General Manager of GCash International where, under his leadership, GCash Overseas has launched in 145 countries, reaching over 80% of the overseas Filipino diaspora, while enabling Filipinos traveling abroad to use their GCash app or card for transactions in over 200 countries and territories.

Audrey Mae D. Peñaranda is the Country Director of BPC Philippines with over 23 years of leadership experience across banking, payments, and enterprise technology. She leads BPC’s Philippine strategy at the forefront of next-generation payments infrastructure, working closely with banks, fintechs, e-wallets, and government institutions to modernize acquiring, issuing, and digital banking ecosystems.

A seasoned payments executive, Audrey has deep hands-on exposure to merchant acquiring, digital wallets, real-time payments, fraud management, and platform-based banking transformation, aligning advanced payment technologies with regulatory, operational, and market realities in emerging economies. Her work spans large-scale deployments of payment platforms, go-to-market execution for modern payments solutions, and strategic advisory on regulatory-compliant innovation within BSP-regulated environments.

Vaibhav Jain has close to a decade of experience building acceptance solutions and forging high impact partnerships with payment networks, acquirers, fintechs and merchants. He focuses on making digital payments simpler, more secure, and more accessible for consumers and small businesses.

He is the Director of Product and Go To Market for Visa’s QR Centre of Excellence. In this role, he leads the product roadmap, GTM strategy and partner ecosystem that enable Visa acceptance across domestic QR systems in Asia Pacific. His work sits at the intersection of card payments and real time payment networks, shaping how markets adopt interoperable and modern QR acceptance.

Ms. Anne Michelle N. Andres is a Bank Officer V and currently heads the Strategic Relations Group of the Payments Policy and Development Department (PPDD). The PPDD is tasked, among others, to formulate payment system policies and regulations essential for fostering a holistic regulatory environment that enables payments innovations while ensuring safe and efficient operations of the payment system. The PPDD also collaborates with domestic and foreign stakeholders in promoting and sustaining the safety, efficiency, reliability, affordability, and inclusivity of the country’s payment systems in order to drive the country towards digital payments transformation.

Before joining PPDD, she was part of the Bangko Sentral’s Economic and Financial Learning Center – Head Office, and prior to that, the Department of Economic Research.

Askari Brown is a payments veteran with more than 25 years of payments and financial services experience, he drives new client acquisitions while harnessing strategic partnerships to enhance solution deployment and activation for ACI clients. During his ACI career, now spanning nearly two decades, Askari covered multiple leadership roles across the enterprise, with an emphasis on consumer and wholesale banking software solutions.
Askari also spent four years as the VP of Global Multi-rail Payments Practice Lead at Mastercard, where he led a global advisory team driving multi-rail payment opportunities and projects that focused on real-time, account-to-account, and cross-border remittance payments.

Joachim Samuelsson is CEO and a main owner of NASDAQ First North–listed Crunchfish, a fintech company headquartered in Malmö, Sweden. A deep-tech innovator and serial entrepreneur, he has built and led multiple technology ventures at the intersection of infrastructure, security, and scale. Joachim holds more than 20 granted patents in digital payments and communication technologies and has been involved in seven successful business exits. At Crunchfish, he has driven a fundamental rethink of offline payments, introducing a modular ecosystem model and the Reserve, Pay, and Settle architecture that enables governed offline payments with online settlement.

Maria Christina S. Masangkay is the Deputy Director of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ Payments Policy and Development Department (PPDD), which drives initiatives to ensure the safety, efficiency, and reliability of the Philippines’ major payment systems. She currently heads the Payments Data Management and Analytics Group (PDMAG), leading efforts to develop quantitative models, reporting frameworks, performance metrics, and analytical tools that track and accelerate digital payments adoption.

Her work centers on leveraging timely and accurate data to support evidence-based policies and market development programs, enabling effective strategies that advance the country’s payments ecosystem.

Mr. Azrul Fakhzan B. Mainor was appointed Chief Commercial Officer on 1 September 2025, bringing with him over two decades of experience in payments, business development and commercial strategy. A long-time champion of Malaysia’s card and digital payment industry, Azrul is widely recognised as a key advocate behind the success and growth of MyDebit.

At PayNet, he provides strategic leadership to drive revenue growth, market expansion and commercial partnerships across the payments landscape. He plays a pivotal role in advancing high-impact initiatives that accelerate digital payments adoption and strengthen PayNet’s market position through innovation and strategic partnerships.

Before joining PayNet, Azrul held senior leadership roles at Visa Malaysia and Bank Negara Malaysia’s Payment Systems Policy Department. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Business Management from Northern University of Malaysia.

Raja Bula is a Senior Manager of Product Marketing for Wearable and Embedded Payment Solutions at Infineon Technologies. With 20 years of industry experience, he has contributed to consulting national authorities on implementing payment systems in closed and open-loop environments. Raja possesses extensive expertise in system integration for transit fare collection and closed-loop payment solutions. He has held leadership roles in standardization bodies and has been a sought-after speaker at prominent payment conferences. Currently, he drives the roadmap, strategy, and product portfolio development for secure ICs in payment solutions across diverse use cases, shaping the future of digital transactions.

Max Ebdy is a seasoned payments and identity technology leader with extensive experience helping financial institutions and government organizations modernise how they issue and manage secure credentials. As Sales Director, APAC, Max works closely with banks, fintechs, and regulated entities to enable next-generation payment experiences — from digital-first onboarding to instant issuance and secure identity verification.

With a background spanning both enterprise and high-growth environments, Max brings a unique blend of commercial acumen and innovation leadership. He has partnered with institutions across the region to deploy solutions that reduce friction, enhance security, and accelerate time-to-activation for cards and digital credentials.

Max frequently speaks on topics including instant issuance, tokenisation, digital identity, and the evolving expectations of consumers in an always-on, instant-access world. His insights reflect deep regional experience and a passion for building secure, scalable, customer-centric payment journeys.

Roman Scerban is a payments technology leader with more than 20 years of proven success helping banks, national networks, and fintechs design, integrate, and modernize secure, scalable digital payments across APAC and global markets.

As the lead in Retail Payments Solutions at ACI Worldwide, Roman works at the intersection of cloud modernization and multi-rail payments, championing complex transformations across card and account-based ecosystems. From large-scale card migrations and real-time payments deployments to switching, clearing, and regulatory initiatives, Roman brings deep expertise in card issuance, processing, acceptance, and scheme integration, offering practical insight into what it takes to deliver resilient, future-ready payment systems.

Atty. Tricia T. Defante-Andres is a Deputy Director from the Payments Policy and Development Department (PPDD), the department responsible for the formulation of policies and regulations to govern the National Payments System (NPS) and its participants, pursuit of digital payments innovation and strategic relationship management. As head of the Payment Development Group (PDG) of PPDD, Atty. Andres regularly engages with payments participants and stakeholders, both from the public and private sector, to advance the development and adoption of digital retail payments and enhance the existing payment streams in the country. She is also involved in the development of policies to support payments digitalization. Before heading the PDG, Atty. Andres led the Strategic Relations Group (SRG) of the department and was also with the Licensing and Advisory Services Group (LASG) of the then Payments Supervision and Oversight Department (PSOD).

Ferdie leads the Commercial Product Team of GCash, currently dedicated to Innovations; he and his team are responsible for building the new products that enables Gcash to participate in and win in new spaces or drive industry behavior.

One of the key projects he and his team worked on is the enablement of NFC payments using the GCash app. Having changed the payments landscape in the Philippines since its inception (SMS payments, QR payments, etc.), GCash aims to revolutionize the space again through NFC.

Prior to this, he led the Product team of Gcash, looking after businesses like Payments, Transfers, B2B, E-Commerce, etc. responsible for ideating, building and growing these business verticals.

He is a Bank Officer at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and works at the Payments Policy and Development Department where he was assigned as the Project Technical Lead for Project Agila, the BSP’s wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project. Project Agila aims to orient the BSP and payments industry on on the capability of novel technologies such as programmable ledger and tokenization, to unlock a CBDC’s potential for fostering enhancements in the large-value payment system.

Prior to his work for Project Agila, he formulated payment system policies and regulations that are essential for enabling payments innovations to thrive while upholding safety, efficiency and consumer protection, thereby helping build public trust in the national payment system.

Jeremy Light is the co-founder of a UK micropayments start-up, Fourdotzero aimed at content creators. In parallel, he is a content creator himself, writing a regular newsletter on Substack drawing on his experience of the payments industry where he had a long career as a management consultant with Accenture, latterly leading the European payments practice from London. Prior to founding Fourdotzero, he worked for a Silicon Valley digital assets Fintech where he helped grow a global payments network. Jeremy is also a member of the board of the Pan-African Payments and Settlement System (PAPSS).

Xandi Alcasid is Head of Product Management for Global Payments Solutions at HSBC Philippines. She has over a dcade of experience in cash management and payments, and has led the rollout of Real-Time Payments and ISO20022 initiatives within the bank. Her work focuses on the intersection of regulation, innovation, and emerging payments.

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.

Terry brings over 20 years of strategic leadership experience in the technology sector, specializing in building and scaling cloud solutions across the Asia-Pacific and Japan regions. At Netwrix, he leads the APJ sales organization, focusing on expanding the company's presence and driving business transformation through strong partner ecosystems and innovative cybersecurity solutions.

Miguel “Migs” Geronilla is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of GCash, where he leads efforts to strengthen trust and resilience across the country’s largest fintech ecosystem. With over 20 years of experience in cybersecurity and fraud management, Migs has been at the forefront of protecting millions of Filipinos from digital threats and financial crime.

In just 1.5 years, he has driven a major transformation in GCash’s security posture—modernizing defenses, integrating AI-driven fraud detection, and embedding security into every layer of innovation to safeguard users and enable responsible growth.

Atty. Regis obtained his pre-law degree in Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of the Philippines – Manila where he graduated Cum Laude. He earned his law degree from the Faculty of Civil Law of the University of Santo Tomas in 2015 while working in the BSP. He was admitted to the practice of law in 2016 after passing the 2015 Philippine Bar Examinations.

Atty. Regis officially joined the OGCLS in 2017. He was instrumental in the enactment of two of BSP’s legislative agenda, the Republic Act No. 11765, otherwise known as the “Financial Products and Services Consumer Protection Act,” which was signed into law in 2022, and Republic Act No. 12010 or the “Anti- Financial Account Scamming Act” (AFASA), which was enacted in 2024. Atty. Regis was also a member of the Technical Working Group which crafted the implementing rules and regulations of the AFASA.

Director Filbert Catalino F. Flores III, or simply Filbert, is a seasoned public servant with over 34 years of government service, with profound expertise in enforcement, regulatory governance, and policy-making.

A licensed aeronautical engineer and lawyer, he also holds a Master’s degree in National Security Administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines and has completed executive management programs at the Asian Institute of Management.

Filbert joined the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November 2020 and quickly became a key figure in the fight against financial scams. As Assistant Director of the Special Operations Division under the Enforcement and Investor Protection Department (EIPD), he actively led and participated in enforcement actions against investment fraud, including raids against scam operations. He headed the task force on illegal online lending applications (OLAs), resulting in cease-and-desist orders against numerous entities, the removal of abusive apps from digital platforms, and the establishment of a regulatory clearance system requiring SEC approval prior to app store listing. He also served as the Commission’s Complaints Czar, resolving over 1,000 public complaints within three months.

Hardik Bhutani is a seasoned Product leader with 18 years of experience in technology and finance. He currently heads the Fraud Lab for Biometrics at Onfido, an Entrust Company, where he drives innovation in fraud detection and prevention. Hardik is known for leading cross-functional teams and delivering impactful projects that enhance user experience and drive revenue growth. His deep expertise in fraud patterns and biometric security helps safeguard businesses and build user trust. Previously, Hardik held key roles at American Express and Barclays, contributing to strategic initiatives across fraud and product domains.