Experienced payments professional with 25+ years in banking, focusing on end-to-end payment journeys across SEPA and international flows. Active in industry working groups and conferences, with a strong emphasis on digital payments, digital assets, and Digital Euro developments, promoting practical innovation alongside fraud prevention, compliance, and trust in the payments ecosystem.

Erste Group is a leading Central and Eastern European bank, driving innovation in digital payments and financial services. It actively supports the evolution of SEPA and international payment ecosystems, while exploring future developments such as digital assets and digital payments, with a strong focus on security, compliance, and customer trust.efficient, accessible, secure, and reliable payments, with an eye for the interests and wishes of other participants, such as consumers and merchant and takes care of collective non-competitive tasks and projects within the Dutch Payments ecosystem.

Retail CBDCs are moving from experimentation towards real-world implementation—but widespread adoption is far from guaranteed. This panel explores the key challenges, but also what it takes to build public trust, create compelling use cases and encourage uptake among consumers and merchants, while ensuring accessibility, privacy and seamless integration with existing payment systems.