Australian Payments Network Summit - Speakers

Juanita Phillips

MC

Juanita Phillips is one of Australia’s best loved and experienced news presenters, and an accomplished MC and speaker.

For over two decades, she anchored the ABC’s flagship 7pm News in Sydney, making her the public broadcaster’s longest-serving prime-time female TV news presenter. Before this time, she anchored CNN’s morning news and business show in London for five years, and was one of the first Australians to present TV news on the BBC.

Ms Phillips has also worked for Channel Ten and Sky News, and has been a columnist and feature writer for The Bulletin magazine, News Corporation and Fairfax. She has written a series of children’s books, The Newspaper Kids, and is the author of a best-selling memoir about juggling work and motherhood, A Pressure Cooker Saved My Life.

​Bianca Bates

Managing Director, Head of Payments J.P. Morgan Australia and New Zealand

​Bianca Bates is the Head of Payments, Australia and New Zealand at J.P. Morgan, responsible for driving business strategy and growth. The Payments business encompasses payables, receivables including merchant acquiring, liquidity, foreign exchange, account services, channels, escrow, and trade solutions.

In the rapidly evolving payments landscape, Ms Bates overseas product development and innovation, business P&L, client experience and overall business governance. She manages a team across sales, product, client service and implementations, and key partners including operations and technology.

Ms Bates has over 25 years of financial industry experience. She joined JP Morgan in 2013 and held several roles, including APAC Head of Business Transformation for J.P. Morgan Payments based in Hong Kong. Prior to J.P. Morgan, Ms Bates worked at Citi and UBS in Sydney and London.

Ms Bates currently serves as an AusPayNet Director and holds a GAID. She also sits on the Australian Advisory Board for Women in Payments.

Tiziana Bianco

VP AuNZSP Product & Solutions – Visa
Customer Experience, Innovation, Product and Transformation Executive

Tiziana Bianco is a transformational leader with primary expertise in Customer Experience, Product and Innovation. She is a technology, product and management executive with 15+ years of global experience, having developed and launched business operations, new products, solutions and services for multinational brands. She is currently leading the Visa Product and Solutions team, having carriage for Visa’s core consumer and business solutions inclusive of Loyalty and Instalments, Risk and Data Services, Networks and Platforms and Digital Partnerships across the Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific markets.

Prior to this, Ms Bianco supported the expansion of Zip Payments outside of Australia through strategic acquisition and inorganic product and engineering expansion. She also created and led the global Innovation Lab network at CBA across Sydney, London, and Hong Kong.

Her ability to identify, test and drive new ways of working, emerging business models and new capabilities to help organisations future fit themselves, drive customer advocacy and establish sustained innovative cultures are her core passions.

Ms Bianco’s intrapreneurial mindset and leadership continues to be cultivated and curated with strong relationships and networks established through trade missions to Israel with the first Women Leaders Mission led by Lucy Turnbull AO and Jillian Segal AM and various visits to Silicon Valley, Europe and Asia.

Ms Bianco’s early days were spent in management consultant at Capgemini Australia, with primary expertise in large scale transformational programmes, ranging from strategy through to implementation within the financial services, retail and telecommunication sectors. Before moving to Australia, she spent time at ING DIRECT, Canada with a predominate focus on customer experience programs.

John Brogden AM

Chair, AusPayNet

John Brogden is an experienced Chairman, Non-Executive Director, Executive and former Member of Parliament with more than 30 years’ experience in the public sector, financial services, professional associations, and not-for-profit organisations.

From 1996 to 2005, John was the Member for Pittwater in the NSW Parliament and was Leader of the Opposition for over three years – the youngest person ever to lead a major political party at a state of federal level. After Parliament, his executive roles have included CEO of Manchester Unity, the Financial Services Council, the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and Landcom. He has chaired Abacus Australian Mutuals (now COBA) and Landcom (prior to being appointed CEO).

John is a leading Australian and international suicide prevention advocate and campaigner for suicide decimalisation. He has been President of LifeLine International and Chair of Lifeline Australia.

He is currently the Chair of AusPayNet, a Director of CFS’ superannuation fund AIL, and the Chair of Advisory Board of the Urban Property Group.

He holds a Master of Public Affairs (MPA) from the University of Sydney, is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD) and is a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).

Michele Bullock

Governor, Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)

Michele Bullock commenced as Governor of the RBA on 18 September 2023. She is Chair of the Reserve Bank Board, Payments System Board and Council of Financial Regulators. Prior to her current role, Ms Bullock was the Deputy Governor of the RBA.

Ms Bullock has also held a variety of senior management positions in the Bank. She was Assistant Governor (Financial System, Assistant Governor (Business Services), Assistant Governor (Currency), Adviser for the Currency Group and, before that, Head of Payments Policy Department.

Lynne Cardwell

Executive Director, Banking and Financial Services, NSW Treasury

Ellis Connolly

Head of Payments Policy, Reserve Bank of Australia

Ellis Connolly is the Head of Payments Policy Department at the Reserve Bank of Australia. He is responsible for advising the Payments System Board on the safety, competitiveness and efficiency of the payments system. He is also responsible for the supervision of systemically important clearing and settlement facilities and payment systems operating in Australia.

At the Bank, Mr Connolly previously held the positions of Deputy Head of Payments Policy Department, Deputy Secretary, Deputy Head of Domestic Markets Department and Deputy Head of Economic Analysis Department, among others. Mr Connolly has a Bachelor of Economics (Hons) from the University of New South Wales, a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of Technology, Sydney and a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Sarah Court

Deputy Chair, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)

Sarah commenced as an ASIC Deputy Chair on 1 June 2021.

Prior to joining ASIC, Ms Court was a Commissioner at the ACCC for three terms from May 2018 to May 2021. At the ACCC, Ms Court led the Commission’s enforcement and investigation work, and contributed extensively to strategic priority setting, statutory decision-making and leadership across the agency on a range of complex economy-wide legal and economic issues.

Before her time at the ACCC, Ms Court was a Senior Executive Lawyer and Director at the Australian Government Solicitor, where she led national teams in government litigation including restrictive trade practices, competition and consumer law, administrative law, employment law, and law enforcement litigation.

Ms Court has held board positions with the Law School and Centre for Regulation and Market Analysis at the University of South Australia.

Nish Dharmaratne

Global Head of Product for Global Transaction Bank, Westpac

Nish Dharmaratne is the Global Head of Product for Global Transaction Banking business at Westpac Institutional Bank, based in Australia. In her current role, she covers core payments, new payment solutions, cross-currency payments, domestic and international receivables, corporate commercial cards, merchant acquiring, liquidity solutions, and balance sheet management.

Mrs Dharmaratne has over 23 years of experience in banking across Australia and Asia. She led GTS business in Singapore for Citibank and has held various roles with Citi leading regional businesses in liquidity, payments, investments, client solutions, and relationship management.

Effie Dimitropoulos

CEO – AUDD, Novatti Group

Effie Dimitropoulos is an accomplished fintech professional known for her expertise in harnessing the power of digital currencies, alternative payment rails, and stablecoin usage on public blockchains to revolutionise payments and internet commerce. Her strategic business acumen and passion for technology led her to establish a pioneering unit at Novatti, bringing their Australian dollar-backed stablecoin, AUDD, to market. With a focus on facilitating frictionless financial transactions worldwide, she's enabling businesses to capitalise on these transformative technologies, leading to the adoption of blockchain in global payments and commerce.

Nigel Dobson

Banking Services Lead, ANZ Bank

Nigel Dobson is the Banking Services Lead at ANZ. He manages development and operations teams in Melbourne, Singapore and Bengaluru, and is also responsible for the Wholesale Digital team who are dedicated to delivering digital channels and integration services for the Institutional Bank. Mr Dobson also leads the bank’s Digital Asset Services strategy and associated activities.

Prior to his current role, Mr Dobson spent four years in senior transaction banking roles at ANZ, including Global Head of Payments and Cash Management, and Global Head of Transaction Banking Products.

Mr Dobson joined ANZ in July 2009 from Citi in Hong Kong, where he was Regional Head of Trade and Transaction Services. He spent 19 years at Citi in various senior Markets and Transaction Services roles in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Riaz Hussain

Head of Security: Standards & Transformation 

Riaz Hussain is responsible for security standards, assessment, policy and leading industry-wide programs such as the migration to AES (Advance Encryption Standard). He has more than 30 years’ experience in delivering technology for payments, banking and financial markets across Europe, the United States and Asia Pacific.

Mr Hussain holds a Master’s Degree of Science from Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom.

Andrew Jamieson

Vice President, Standards, PCI Security Standards Council

Andrew Jamieson has been working with payment systems and emerging technologies for almost three decades; developing hardware, creating patents, writing standards, and performing security evaluations. He has a B.Eng (EE with honours), M.Sc (InfoSec), and was recognised as a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff within UL and consultant of the year for the ATM Industry Association. Andrew currently works as the VP of Standards with the PCI Security Standards Council, helping to create and manage standards which secure payment systems around the world.

Chris Jewell

CEO, Zepto

Chris Jewell is CEO and co-founder of Zepto, Australia’s leading account-to-account [A2A] payments infrastructure innovator. Founded and headquartered in Byron Bay, Zepto has played a lead role in Australia's A2A payments revolution.

Before joining Zepto, Mr Jewell spent the better part of two decades working in investment banking and financial markets in London, Melbourne and Sydney for Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Citi in key sales and leadership roles across Asia.

Under Mr Jewell’s leadership, Zepto has become a world-class payments infrastructure technology company. In 2022, the company processed more than A$60 billion in payments volume.

Stephen Jones

Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services

Stephen Jones is the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services.

He’s represented the Illawarra-based seat of Whitlam (previously Throsby) for Labor since 2010.

Stephen grew up in the Illawarra and did all his schooling there, including graduating from Wollongong University with a Law degree and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Politics.

He’s worked as a disability support worker, an industrial relations lawyer and the National Secretary of the CPSU, one of Australia’s biggest and most progressive unions.

​​Jackie Kallman

Head of Payments Industry and Engagement, ANZ

​​Jackie Kallman is the Head of Payments Industry and Engagement within Institutional Banking at ANZ, leading ANZ’s engagement with payments industry bodies, regulators and policy makers on an enterprise level. Ms Kallman has spent the last 15 years in payments and transaction banking, managing payment product portfolios, and supporting the development and management of ANZ’s strategy, standards, and thought leadership in the industry. Her strengths include a depth of payments knowledge and experience, combined with a collaborative, and strong customer centric approach.

Jackie is ANZ’s nominated AusPayNet Director, Chair of the Bulk Electronic Clearing System Management Committee and a member of the Women in Payments Australia Advisory Board.

Catriona Lowe

Deputy Chair, ACCC

Catriona Lowe was appointed to the position of ACCC Deputy Chair for a five-year term in January 2023.

Ms Lowe chairs the Compliance and Product Safety Committee, and is a member of the Competition Exemptions, Consumer Data Right and Enforcement Committees and the Digital Platforms Inquiry, Financial Services Inquiry, Child Care Inquiry, and Energy Markets Boards.

For over 20 years, Ms Lowe has had a strong commitment to consumer issues and protection of consumer rights in her varied roles as a regulator, litigator and consumer advocate.

Before joining the ACCC, Ms Lowe was a Board Member of the Australian Energy Regulator from February 2020. She has also held a non-Executive director role on a range of boards, including the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. She was also principal of a consumer-focused consulting practice.

From 2006 to 2013, Ms Lowe was Co-CEO of the Consumer Action Law Centre. She has also held senior roles with the Consumers’ Federation of Australia and the ACCC.

Nghi Luu

Division Head (Acting), Financial System Division
Department of Treasury

Nghi Luu is the Assistant Secretary of Capital Markets, Payments, and Financial Innovation Branch, Financial System Division at the Department of Treasury. She been working on financial system matters for eight years and has experience on financial sector reform, banking, payment systems, financial innovation and capital markets.

Prior to working in the Financial System Division, Ms Luu worked at the International Monetary Fund (2012-2014) as the Senior Adviser in the Asia Pacific Constituency Office and in Macroeconomic Group in Treasury on economic forecasting, economic modelling and on international economy matters.

Ms Luu has a Bachelor of Economics (Hons)/Commerce from the Australian National University.

David Marsh

Principal Industry Consultant, Endava

David Marsh is the Principal Industry Consultant for Endava in Australia. With over 15 years of experience in payments, David has worked with the corporate, institutional and government clients of two of Australia’s major banks. He has also worked with AusPayNet on strategic innovation projects such as Digital identity. In his current role, David is leveraging Endava’s international experience engineering bespoke payment solutions to support Australia’s growing payments industry.

Jason McAllister

Global Partnerships, Stripe

Jason McAllister is from the Global Partnerships team within Stripe. He works with payments industry partners in the APAC region to develop scalable solutions for Stripe's users, which range from small business owners through to global organisations that process billions in revenue every year.

Prior to joining Stripe, Mr McAllister was in payments development for the Australian division of ANZ Bank for 10 years, focusing on the technologies and regulation that would shape the customer experience across most facets of consumer payments. His early career was with strategic advisory firm L.E.K Consulting.

Karl Mohan

General Manager (APAC and MEA) and Global Head of Banking Partnerships, Crypto.com

Karl Mohan joined Crypto.com in August 2021, bringing with him over two decades of experience in financial services, payments, and business consulting. During this time, he worked on the delivery of products and services across the financial services spectrum, including digital wallets, business lending and scheme cards issuance at listed companies, including National Australia Bank (NAB), where he was Head of Product, Partnerships and Growth.

​Dr Greg Moore

Division Director, Macquarie Bank Limited

Dr Moore is division director at Macquarie Bank Limited. He was appointed by Electing Members as a director in October 2022.

​Dilip Rao

Advisor, Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC)

​Dilip Rao is a veteran in banking technology, payments, and cryptocurrencies. He founded Australia’s first P2P payments start-up and has held senior roles in technology and business development across APAC.

​Mr Rao is an evangelist for fintech innovation and loves challenging the status quo. This year, he spearheaded the Australian Central Bank Digital Currency Pilot Project for the DFCRC, in partnership with the RBA.

Dr Tony Richards

Senior Advisor, Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC)

Tony Richards is Senior Advisor at the DFCRC and was Chair of the Steering Committee for the recently completed central bank digital currency (CBDC) project with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). He previously held senior roles at the RBA including Head of Payments Policy, Head of Economic Research, and Head of Economic Analysis.

Dr Richards was a member of the Basel-based Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures over 2012-21. His research has been published in leading international economics and finance journals.

Dr John Selby

Senior Consultant and Head of Research, Privcore

Dr John Selby is Privcore’s Senior Consultant and Head of Research. In that role, he advises governments, large technology companies and startups on how to improve their governance and management of their new technology risks, including cyber security, privacy and artificial intelligence.

With over two decades of experience as a lawyer, academic and consultant, he is a thought leader on the regulation of new technologies who has been interviewed on the topic of cash vs digital payment systems by the Sydney Morning Herald, ABC Radio and SBS Radio. Dr Selby supervised one of Australia’s first PhD dissertations on Distributed Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) and first published his research on online payment systems in 2008. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at Macquarie University’s Department of Actuarial Studies and Business Analytics.

Dianne Shay

Head of Payments Industry National Australia Bank

Dianne Shay has over 30 years of experience in financial services as a champion of innovation that creates customer value and benefits all consumers and businesses. A self-confessed payments geek, Ms Shay is a former recipient of the Women in Payments Thought Leader award. She is acknowledged as an agent of change across the Australian payments industry, including the New Payments Platform, PayTo, digital identity, safer payments and future of payments frameworks programs. Dianne holds a variety of board and advisory roles including as a Director of AusPayNet.

​Stephanie Tonkin

CEO, Consumer Action Law Centre

​Stephanie Tonkin is CEO of Consumer Action Law Centre. She has worked in the community legal and consumer sectors for over a decade, focusing on systemic and integrated service responses to family violence, mortgage stress and vulnerability.

​Ms Tonkin is also a Consumer Director on the Energy and Water Ombudsman of Victoria and sits on a broad range of industry, regulator and government advisory committees, including the National Anti-Scams Centre Advisory Board and ASIC Consultative Panel.

​Dr Chris Vasantkumar

Lecturer, Macquarie University

​Dr Chris Vasantkumar is a lecturer in anthropology at the Macquarie University School of Social Sciences. He is an economic anthropologist who researches attitudes towards cash, going cashless, and money more generally, with a particular focus on Zimbabwe.

Born in the United States, Dr. Vasantkumar holds a BA from Princeton University and a Master’s and PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. An award-winning teacher, previously an Associate Professor at Hamilton College in New York state, he relocated to Sydney in 2015. He has been interviewed about comparative approaches to cash and cashlessness by media such as The Guardian, ABC Radio, and ABC and SBS television news. He is a member of the editorial board of American Ethnologist and is also co-director of a new multi-national research project on the future of money funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Andy White

Chief Executive Officer, AusPayNet

Andy White is the CEO of AusPayNet, the industry association and self-regulatory body for the Australian payments industry.

Mr White has over 25 years’ international experience. He joined AusPayNet in 2015 from the Australian Securities Exchange, where he was General Manager for Settlement Services and, prior to that, General Manager for Clearing Risk Management. Previously, he held leadership roles at LCH.Clearnet in London, after starting his career at the Bank of England.

Mr White is a graduate of Oxford University and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He holds a variety of advisory and board roles, including with the Payment Card Industry and Australia’s National Anti-Scam Centre.

Christian Westerlind Wigstrom

CEO and Co-Founder, Monoova

Christian Westerlind Wigstrom is the Co-Founder and CEO of Monoova, a Sydney-based B2B payments automation platform and a member of the Fintech Australia Board since November 2022. 

Over the past five years, Mr Westerlind Wigstrom has led the building of a company servicing domestic and international tech-first platforms. To date, Monoova has processed $100bn through its API-driven solution. 

Born in Sweden, Mr Westerlind Wigstrom obtained a Master’s Degree in Economics, and a PhD in International Relations from Oxford University. Following a position as speech writer and economic advisor in the House of Lords in London, he moved to Zimbabwe to work as Chief of Staff at a Harare-based agricultural group with operations across Southern and Eastern Africa.

Mr Westerlind Wigstrom was a finalist for Fintech Australia’s ‘Outstanding Fintech Leader of the Year’ Award in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Angel Zhong

Associate Professor, RMIT University

Associate Professor Angel Zhong is an award-winning finance researcher at RMIT University. She is currently the Head of Department of Finance in the College of Business and Law. She specialises in empirical asset pricing and investor behaviour in financial markets. 

Dr Zhong's research not only holds substantial implications for investment strategies but also influences policy decisions for both industry professionals and governmental organisations. She has secured over $600,000 in external research funding. Her research has frequently attracted significant mainstream media attention, such as Bloomberg, ABC, the Daily Telegraph, the Australian Financial Review and Reuters. Her commitment to translating her research to improve the financial literacy and wellbeing of the community has seen her recognised as a finalist for Thought Leader of the Year in the Women in Finance Awards 2021 and 2023 in Australia. She is an editorial board member of two prestigious field journals.