Sends CEO Alona Shevtsova to lead payments panel at MEBIS 2026

Alona Shevtsova, CEO of Sends, will moderate a senior-level payments innovation panel at the 17th Middle East Banking Innovation Summit (MEBIS 2026), taking place on September 16–17 at Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai.

The session, ‘Payment Innovation in Banking: Real Time, Cross Border and Wallet Driven Evolution,’ will bring together banking and payments leaders from across the Middle East to examine how real-time payments, digital wallets, cross-border rails and changing customer behaviour are reshaping the way money moves.

Moderated by Alona Shevtsova, the discussion will feature Hasan Jaber, Deputy CEO at Al Fardan Exchange and CEO of AlfaNow; Ananth Srivatsa, Executive Vice President at RAKBANK; Mohamed Hussein, Head of Banking Solutions Center of Excellence at BANK NXT; Kamran Khan, Executive Director, Product Innovation & Implementation (EMEA) at First Abu Dhabi Bank; Ashish Gupta, Head of Digital, Retail SME and Sales at BankDhofar; and Naveed Minhas, EMEA IPC Payments Leader at IBM.

The conversation will look at where banks are already seeing tangible value from real-time payments, how digital wallets and super apps are changing the relationship between financial institutions and their customers, and what still needs to happen to make cross-border payments faster and more efficient.
Infrastructure and interoperability will also be central to the discussion.

As payments become increasingly continuous and move across multiple platforms, currencies and jurisdictions, banks and fintech companies face the challenge of connecting legacy systems with new payment rails while maintaining security, compliance and operational resilience. These themes form part of MEBIS 2026’s broader focus on payments innovation, real-time rails, tokenisation and instant settlement.

Alona Shevtsova stated that, “The next stage of payments innovation is not about one technology winning over another. It is about connecting the infrastructure around the customer. Real-time payments, wallets and cross-border rails need to work together in a way that makes moving money feel increasingly seamless, while the regulatory and risk infrastructure behind that experience becomes more sophisticated.”

Earlier this year, Alona Shevtsova joined two expert panels at PAY360 in London, discussing the impact of agentic AI on AML and KYC and the evolution of embedded finance from an industry concept into a scalable business model. Shevtsova also moderated discussions in Riyadh examining the intersection of AI, risk, blockchain, digital finance and emerging digital ecosystems.

Also the same year, Sends was named to The Payments Power 50, recognising companies and industry voices making a significant contribution to the global payments sector. MEBIS brings together C-level banking executives, technology leaders and innovators from across the Middle East. The 2026 program covers AI and intelligent automation, digital banking, payments innovation, open banking, embedded finance, cybersecurity, data strategy and the infrastructure required for the next generation of financial services.