Ben DeBerg
Ben is a Senior Consultant at FTI Consulting's Financial Services team, where he has been a valued member since April 2020. With over six years of dedicated experience in EU public affairs, he specialises in policy advocacy, strategic communications, and comprehensive strategy development.
Ben's primary expertise lies in the realm of digital finance and payments, where he plays a role in handling significant initiatives, including the FIDA and Digital Euro proposals. He has also contributed his expertise to critical legislative projects such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), Transfer of Funds Regulation (TOFR), Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), DLT Pilot Regime, and legislation related to clearing and settlement infrastructure.
Ben provides guidance to clients within the payments, crypto asset, asset management, and market infrastructure sectors. His insights revolve around navigating the ever-evolving landscape of legislative and regulatory developments, as well as facilitating meaningful political engagement within the Brussels arena.
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Boris Martinovic
Boris has been Director of Public Policy for Hungary and Slovenia at Mastercard since May 2018, and for Austria since February 2020. He is responsible for the development and implementation of Mastercard’s local public policy strategy in Austria, Hungary and Slovenia, as well as the local execution of Mastercard’s European and global public policy agenda. In his work at Mastercard his main focus has been the reduction of shadow economy through electronic payments, promotion of financial awareness and digitalization both at national and regional levels, enablement of smart city collaborations with local authorities, and public policy support for the topics of instant payments, strong customer authentication, the Payment Services Directive and e-mobility. In addition, Boris manages Mastercard’s Hungarian „BeyondBAU” strategy, which focuses on non-traditinal topics such as CSR, education, data philanthropy and sustainability.
Prior to joining Mastercard, Boris worked for ten years at the Hungarian Competition Authority, first in antitrust, and later in merger control, where he was Head of Merger Section for a year. Boris graduated from the Budapest Corvinus University in 2008, acquiring a masters degree in finance. He later studied public policy in Tokyo between 2014 and 2015. Outside of work his two primary hobbies are literary writing (Boris is a published author of fiction) and martial arts (kenjutsu).
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Ertan Piskin
Ertan Piskin joined Erste Bank in 2000 and has been leading various innovative business development areas for more than 20 years.
Since 2022, Ertan Piskin has been responsible for Retail Products & Services in the retail banking business with a focus on the core business primarily customer onboarding, payment accounts, cards, payments, fraud management, innovative payment instruments, as well as deposit, financing, securities, and investment business.
In addition to his executive role, Ertan Piskin:
Member Advisory Board Erste Group Card Processor d.o.o.
Deputy Chairman Supervisory Board Payment Service Austria (PSA)
Member Supervisory Board Erste Asset Management GmbH (EAM)
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Jesse McWaters
Jesse McWaters leads Mastercard’s global regulatory advocacy function, where he is responsible directing the company’s regulatory and standards engagement on a wide range of emerging regulatory and policy issues including CBDCs, cross-border payments, crypto-assets, digital ID, and network security. Prior to joining Mastercard, Jesse served as Financial Technology & Innovation Lead at the World Economic Forum and as a financial services strategy consultant at Deloitte, supporting large-scale technology transformations and the roll-out of new business models for leading banks, insurers, and wealth managers.
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Lajos Bartha
Central Bank of Hungary (Magyar Nemzeti Bank)
Lajos Bartha is currently Executive Director for Financial Infrastructures and Banking operations in the Central Bank of Hungary, where previously he led the Directorate Financial Infrastructures between 2007 and 2017.
The executive directorate is responsible for regulation and supervision of payment services, oversight of clearing and settlement systems, and operation of the Bank’s back office including its RTGS system. It plays an active role in the development of the Hungarian payment and securities clearing and settlement infrastructures. In the last 10 years he was responsible for the introduction of the intraday clearing system in 2012, the onboarding of the HUF in the CLS settlement in 2015 and the introduction of the instant payment system in 2020.
He is the member of the ESCB’s Market Infrastructures and Payments Committee, member of the CLS Oversight Committee, Board member of the Hungarian Mint Ltd (Magyar Pénzverő Zrt) and member of the supervisory boards of the Hungarian Stock Exchange (BÉT Zrt) and of the Hungarian Automated Clearing house (GIRO Zrt). He has been working for Magyar Nemzeti Bank since 1998 and has held different positions in the financial infrastructures directorate.
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László Butt
László is a Senior Policy Officer in the Digital Finance Unit of the European Commission. Since 2020, he has been actively involved in formulating policies pertaining to central bank digital currencies, as well as developing the European regulation of the digital euro and conducting associated impact assessments.
Between 1999 and 2002, László served as an analyst and advisor at OTP Bank Hungary. Subsequently, he spent four years heading a startup research and consulting firm specializing in internet and telecommunications.
From 2006 to 2012, he held responsibility for banking regulatory matters within the Internal Market Directorate-General of the European Commission. During the Greek financial crisis, László assumed the leadership of the European Commission’s team responsible for financial stability and crisis management. From 2016 to 2019, he led out on a number of crisis country assignments and financial crisis management projects while at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC.
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Neil Taylor
Neil joined Mastercard in 2019 and leads the global data strategy teams across Services, Products and Regions, helping the business drive the strategic use of data while navigating known & future data risks. His responsibilities include data strategy related to Open Finance, business governance around AI, the ethics of innovating with data, acquisition due-diligence and advising on the data impacts of regulatory change on Mastercard’s data assets and products.
Neil began his career in engineering and medical industries in the UK and USA before identifying emerging trends in the use of data for decision making. Neil subsequently joined Ordnance Survey and spent seven years developing his knowledge of data analytics, licensing and services in the world of geo-data and public sector information.
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Peter Merc
Peter Merc is a Managing Partner in Lemur Legal, an advisory company that provides legal support for fintech and crypto companies. Peter is also a co-founder and managing partner in Suricate Ventures, a privately financed venture capital firm. As an assistant professor, Peter lectures at the Law Faculty of New University in Ljubljana. Before his solo career, Peter worked in the banking sector in capital markets, compliance, and bank supervision.
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Petia Niederländer
Petia Niederlaender is Director for Payments, Risk Monitoring and Financial Literacy of the Austrian National Bank (OeNB). From 2012 to 2020 she served on the board of EBA Clearing and was lastly acting as chairperson of the board. Prior to joining the OeNB, Petia had several management positions in Payments and Banking Operation at Erste Group and represented Erste Bank as well as the Austrian payments community in several national and international bodies. She holds a master degree in Investment Banking and Business Administration from the Vienna University of Economics.
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Robrecht Vandormael
Robrecht is Secretary General of Payments Europe, the association that represent card based payments in Europe. He is responsible for setting the strategic direction, the day-to-day management, and the external representation of the association. He is a member of the European Commission Payments Systems Expert Group (PSMEG).
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Stanislava Zadravec Caprirolo
Stanislava Zadravec Caprirolo is, since July 2017 Director of the Bank Association of Slovenia and a Member of Executive Board of European Banking Federation. From April 2010 to April 2016 she was Vice Governor of the Bank of Slovenia, which is responsible authority also for banking supervision and financial stability. In the period of April 2016 to July 2017 she was Strategic Adviser to the Governor of the Bank of Slovenia and Chief Compliance Officer. She was a Member of SSM ECB Supervisory Board, nonvoting Member of ESRB, Member of National Systemic Risk Board, Member of ECB Ethics Framework TF and member of EBA. From 2014 to 2017 se was also Program Board Member of European Supervisor Education Initiative.
She is former Director General of Treasury of the Ministry of Finance (2005 – 2009), from 1998 to 2005 she was State Undersecretary at the Ministry of Finance, responsible for the state debt management, liquidity management and state guarantees. During the period of 2003 to 2009 she was also a Member of EFC T-Bills and Bonds Working Group. She also has short term working experience in the World Bank. She started her career in 1989 in the Central Bank of the Republic of Slovenia.
She was also a member (and President) of the Supervisory Board of the Slovenian Export and Development Bank and member of Supervisory Board (and President) of Nova Ljubljanska Banka, member of different national governmental and other strategic or policy making working bodies as well as member of an expert group on public finance, participating in different forms of consultancy activities in the CEE and North Africa region (including for Regional Center for Excellence in Finance and IMF).
She holds a Master degree in International Affairs (Economic Policy Management), Columbia University, New York and Bachelor degree in Law, Ljubljana University.
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