Merchant Payment Round Table

The MPR is run twice a year for 1.5 days and is designed as a payments geek session for merchants only (no acquirers, card schemes etc.) Historically we have capped the session at c.35 firms (there is now a wait list in the US!), with each firm sending one payments expert in order to:

• Share issues and experiences amongst the group (this happens continuously during the year)
• Hear about the latest market developments in payments from ourselves and Glenbrook
• Receive an update on the legal/regulatory payments landscape from Bird and Bird (they are also present to avoid any accusations of collusion)

We ran our first event in June 2019 which was hosted by Google and attended by a range of interesting players such as Zalando, Airbnb, Microsoft, eBay, Wargaming, Digital River, GoDaddy, Western Union, EasyJet and Facebook.

One of the topics where there was a very healthy debate was the latest developments on SCA. This has since generated a useful exchange of information within the group on the latest announcements from the NCA across Europe. Insights from the guys from Google, Microsoft and eBay have all been very helpful to the group in knowledge sharing on this evolving issue. We have also had ongoing input from Scott McInnes from Bird & Bird who is one of Europe’s leading legal figures in payments and SCA.