Rita is currently responsible for the Payments Innovation and Policy Division from the Payments System Department at Banco de Portugal.

Her main tasks include the assessment of the compliance, by Payment Service Providers, of the technical requirements for the new payment services introduced by the Revised Payments Services Directive; the assessment of digital transformation in the provision of payment services; and the interaction with Fintech entities. She is responsible for the Operational Team of Portugal FinLab, a communication channel between entities with innovative projects in the financial sector and the Portuguese regulatory authorities. She is also a member of the secretariat of the High Level Task Force in charge of the digital euro project.

Prior to this, Rita has been a senior economist in the monetary policy implementation division from the Markets Department at Banco de Portugal. 

She holds a degree in Economics and a MSc in Monetary and Financial Economics.

Carl Andreas is senior advisor at the Riksbank. He is an experienced central banker and is currently involved in questions related to money and the digitalisation of payments. His latest research focus on cash demand. Claussen has worked at several central banks and done technical assistance and consultancy work for many more. He has published in academic journals, central bank outlets and blogs. He has a Phd in political economy from the University of Oslo, Norway.

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 payment systems and research. During his tenure Lithuania emerged as a top jurisdiction for fintech companies within the EU under the leadership of the Bank of Lithuania, forging Mr. Jurgilas' reputation as a leading European thinker on the future of banking. 

James Chapman is the senior research director in the Funds Management and Banking Department at the Bank of Canada. He received a Ph.D. in Economics and an MSc in Statistics from the University of Iowa in 2006. He joined the Bank of Canada as a senior analyst in that year. His primary research focus has been on interbank market and financial market infrastructure issues such as liquidity risk and credit risk in large-value payment systems as well as the efficiency of interbank markets. Recently his research focus has evolved to include research on fintech related topics. These topics include the use of distributed ledger technology in financial market infrastructure, specifically the Bank’s Project Jasper, as well as questions related to digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and initial coin offerings.

Anneke Kosse is a Senior Economist at the Secretariat of the Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI). Her portfolio includes conducting research and supporting the Secretariat’s policy and standard-setting work in the area of central bank digital currencies, cryptoassets and stablecoins. Previously, Anneke worked at the Bank of Canada, most recently as a Research Advisor at the Banking and Payments Department, where she was responsible for leading the Bank of Canada’s research agenda for the modernization of the Canadian payment system. Prior to that, Anneke worked for nearly ten years at the Dutch Central Bank, where she conducted research in the area of retail payments. Her payments research has been published in various peer reviewed journals. Anneke holds a PhD in Business and Economics from Tilburg University.

Adeyemi is a digital financial services, financial technology, and digital innovation enthusiast. He actively supports over 80 financial regulators and central banks on policy and regulatory priorities covering FinTech innovation regulation, supervision and ecosystem strategy, open finance, innovative digital financial services & retail payments, regulatory sandbox, payment systems, digital identity and e-KYC, responsible digital credit, electronic money regulation, regulatory and supervisory technologies and recently, digital currencies including central bank digital currency opportunities for financial inclusion, in his current role leading the Inclusive FinTech workstream at the Alliance for Financial Inclusion. 

He has over 15 years professional experience working in payment processing, switching, core banking applications, digital banking channels, micro-insurance, micro-pensions, digital credit, micro-savings, cardless ATM services, mobile money, mobile banking, DFS product design across a spectrum of market segments, across Africa and a few markets in Asia.  

He holds an engineering degree in Petroleum and Gas Engineering, advanced degree in managerial psychology and a MBA.  

Douglas W. Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law, RGC Senior Fellow in Digital Finance and Sustainable Development and Associate Director of the HKU-Standard Chartered Foundation FinTech Academy at the University of Hong Kong. In addition, he is Associate Dean (Taught Postgraduate and Development) of the Faculty of Law at HKU and co-founder and former Director of HKU’s Asian Institute of International Financial Law, as well as Faculty Director and co-founder of the LLM in Compliance and Regulation, the LLM in Corporate and Financial Law, the Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE), and the East Asian International Economic Law and Policy Programmes. Douglas served as Head of the HKU Department of Law from 2011-2014, as Director of the Duke University-HKU Asia America Institute in Transnational Law from 2005-2016, and as an inaugural member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council from 2013-2019. He is a Visiting Professor and Senior Visiting Fellow of Melbourne Law School of the University of Melbourne, a Visiting Professorial Fellow of the Faculty of Law of UNSW Sydney, a non-executive director of NASDAQ and Euronext listed biotechnology firm Aptorum Group, an Advisory Board Member of the Global Impact FinTech (GIFT) Forum, Policy 4.0 and of the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE), and co-founder and an executive board member of the Asia Pacific Structured Finance Association. In 2020 he was awarded an inaugural Hong Kong Research Grants Council Senior Fellowship to study the role of digital finance in financial inclusion and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Douglas has published eighteen books and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation, including most recently Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge 2016) (with Ross Buckley and Emilios Avgouleas) and The RegTech Book (Wiley 2019 (Janos Barberis and Ross Buckley). His recent papers are available on SSRN at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=524849 , where he is among the top 50 authors in the world by total downloads, as well as among the top 15 law authors. Douglas led the development of Introduction to FinTech – launched with edX in May 2018 and now with over 100,000 learners spanning almost every country in the world – and the foundation of the edx-HKU Online Professional Certificate in FinTech. In addition, he has served as a consultant with, among others, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UN, APEC, Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has lectured, co-organised conferences and seminars and been involved with financial sector reform projects around the world. Douglas has been a visiting professor or fellow at Duke, Harvard, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, IDC Herzliya, McGill, Melbourne, National University of Singapore, University of New South Wales, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Zurich, among others.

Currently a Research Advisor at the Bank of Canada, Mohammad joined the Bank as a Senior Economist after he received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Pennsylvania State University in 2015. Prior to that, he received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and M.Sc. in Economics from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, in 2007 and 2009, respectively.

His research interests can be classified into two broad categories: monetary economics and search theory. On monetary economics, he studies new developments in the field of electronic money and payments and explores how introducing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) can affect the implementation and transmission of monetary policy as well as the efficiency and stability of financial system. On search theory, he explores the role of information asymmetries in markets with search frictions, with applications to inter-bank, labor and over-the-counter markets. His work has been published in academic journals such as Journal of Economic Theory, International Economic Review, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control and European Economic Review.

Ms. Marianne Bechara is a Senior Fintech Counsel in the International Monetary Fund’s Legal Department, where she provides legal advice on Fintech, central banks legislation and supervision regimes of financial institutions. Prior to relocating to U.S., Ms. Bechara was senior legal counsel directly assisting the General Counsel of the Lebanese Central Bank and Capital Market Authority at the time. Ms. Bechara received her a Bachelor of Laws in both Lebanese and French laws from Saint-Joseph University, Lebanon, and her LL.M in Banking and Financial Law from Boston University, U.S. She also completed the Fundamentals of FinTech and Banking Law Program at the University of California, Berkeley, U.S. She is an attorney admitted to practice law in both California and New York, U.S.

Thomas Moser is Alternate Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank. He is also a member of the Managing Committee of the Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance at the University of St. Gallen and a member of the Board of Directors of Orell Füssli Holding Ltd. From 2006 to 2009 he was Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C., USA. Thomas Moser holds a MA and a doctorate in Economics from the University of Zurich.