Paul Thomalla

Non-Executive Director, Payments Historian, Podcaster, and Specialist

Paul is accountable for the development of Payments within Finastra and externally to understand, influence and ultimately, help lead the change in payments across the globe. Amongst other areas he has advised on the UK’s NPA, PS2 and PSD3, CRD5, the role of AI and Blockchain in Payments and how to regulate them. He has extensive knowledge of the changes in domestic payment policies around the world and why the change is required. Over the last 3 years he has meet with over 500 Executives to advise and discuss the changes that digitalization will bring to Payments. Prior to Finastra Paul was ACI Worldwide firstly as the CEO and General Manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa, and then developing and running WW Corporate Relations. Also, he had executive roles at Stratus Technology, IBM, Destiny USA, Microsoft and Catalyst Technologies. Paul currently also serves on the UK Payment System Regulator (PSR) advisory board. He was also a member of the Payments Strategy Forum for the UK and also served on: Ecommerce Europe’s Payments Experts Taskforce, Executive board of nexo (international association that develops and promotes open messaging standards - ISO20022 - for card payments), Executive committee of the European Credit Research Institute (ECRI) of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) (Brussels based think tank and forum that debates EU affairs covering all European financial policy areas).