Payments Leaders Converge in London to Debate Sovereignty, Fraud, and AI's Role in Commerce
Event summary
- ACI Worldwide hosts Payments Unleashed EMEA, a two-day invitation-only event in London on June 29-30, 2026.
- Key attendees include executives from Mastercard, Santander, Amazon, NVIDIA, PayPal, Rabobank, and Nationwide.
- Event focuses on four strategic questions: control of payment rails, fraud liability, survival of cards, and AI's role in commerce.
- Keynote by Dr. Leda Glyptis, author of Bankers Like Us and Beyond Resilience.
- Sessions address payments sovereignty, fraud management, and AI's transition from optimization to execution.
The big picture
Europe's payments industry is at a crossroads, with policymakers pushing for reduced dependence on non-European infrastructure and new regulatory requirements reshaping fraud liability. The rise of AI-driven commerce adds another layer of complexity, as software begins to execute transactions independently. These strategic decisions will define the industry's trajectory for the next decade.
What we're watching
- Sovereignty vs. Scale
- Whether Europe can reclaim payments sovereignty through initiatives like the digital Euro and Wero without compromising global scale.
- Fraud Liability Shifts
- How new reimbursement rules will impact banks' fraud management strategies and cost structures.
- AI Commerce Execution
- The pace at which AI agents transition from recommending purchases to executing them, and the unresolved questions around authentication and liability.
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