Going Beyond the Plastic World
In January the top representatives from the leading international financial institutions had an excellent opportunity to gather and discuss at our 2nd annual exclusive event: Card & Payment Developments in CEE all areas of concern and hot topics related to the plastic world. The conference provided delegates with updated developments of cards and payments market in the CEE region and beyond from the leading international and local banks. The conference showed how the main players are successfully increasing their profitability by step by step implemented methodologies and innovative strategies applying within their card and payment units. Case studies, panel discussions and networking with experts and industry leaders have given attendees an interactive, experience driven learning opportunity.
The charismatic chairmen Guenther Gall, Head of the Division Transaction Services at Raiffeisen Zentralbank Austria and Dr. Constantine Stivaros, Business Development Manager, head of e-payments unit in Piraeus Bank have created an excellent atmosphere with their professional approach and background. The top industry representatives – just to mention few of them: BarclayCard, UniCredit Bannk, Raiffeisen Zentralbank, Nordea and Citibank have come to a conclusion that change in cards market and the payments is tremendous and it is crucial to keep the pace with the changes and go beyond the plastic world.
The prestigious panel of 19 speakers from different regions has discussed how technology innovation, regulatory framework are reshaping the cards market in the CEE region - SEPA, e-payments, issuing of new types of cards, co-branding, migration to EMV and fraud. Case study contributions from BarclayCard, Raiffeisen Zentralbank, K&H Bank, NLB, Nordea and many other leading institutions from the speaker’s panel provided insight into practical best practices.
The highlights of day one were great presentations on Meeting Renewed Challenges and Seizing Opportunities of Regulatory Framework. The representatives from the financial institutions have heavily focused on the progress of SEPA schemes, EMV standard payment card system and interchange fees schemes. The Raiffeisen Zentralbank case study delivered by Guenther Gall provided the audience with an in-depth understanding of SEPA requirements from the regulatory point of view and at the same time from the practitioner point of view. The second half of the first day mainly focused on Effective Integration of Marketing and Branding Strategies to Increase ROI. The ING Card case study delivered by Herman Huizinga discussed how to establish innovative marketing strategies to boost the number of active credit card users. The first day of the event was closed by outstanding presentation of Koen Maegherman from K&H Bank who summarized new trends and cards innovations in payment cards.
The second day of the event was opened by Constantine Stivaros from Piraeus Bank. The excellent case studies full of practical examples showed all the attendees how to maintain the leading position by enlarging card portfolio. The highlight of the day was the presentation from BarclayCard delivered by Libby Chambers who introduced the audience OnePulse product that combines a credit card Visa payWave functionality with Oyster. The second half of the second day speakers paid special attention to alternative payment channels and the fraud control strategy. Nordea, Citibank and Banka Koper addressed the mobile payment systems, solutions in the intermediation of C2B flows and completing payments through integrated multi-channeling. By attending this event the attendees had an excellent opportunity to discuss all the areas related to cards and payments in order to increase the profitability of payment cards.
The event was attended by 70 attendees thus the high level of interactivity between the carefully selected top speakers and delegates from different continents was guaranteed. The coffee breaks, speakers-hosted lunches, cocktail evening and dinner provided plenty of networking and deal making opportunities. We all look forward to the next event and we hope to see you there as well.
Lilian Laukova
Production Team Leader - Finance division
Jacob Fleming Group
