About
Instant payments are set to trigger a fundamental shift across the European payments ecosystem.

On 19 May, Tristan Kirchner, CEO Europe at ClearBank will be joined by Joy Macknight, leading financial journalist, Catrine Rhenberg, founder at Nurabal, and Karine Martinez, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Wallester, to unpack what’s changing and the challenges for banks, PSPs and merchants, what it means for your organisation, and the practical steps to stay ahead.
When
Tuesday, May 19, 2026 · 5:00 p.m. Bucharest (GMT +3:00)
Agenda
  • Why SEPA Instant’s rapid growth won’t happen in isolation, and how volume is likely to shift from cards, direct debits, and other rails.
  • What instant payments mean for e-commerce and account-to-account payments, including the role of open banking and initiatives like EPI’s Wero wallet.
  • How higher transaction limits could unlock new use cases and business models.
  • Where instant payments could accelerate the decline of legacy payment rails, and what may replace them.
  • How banks and PSPs can use strategic scenario planning to prioritise investments and stay competitive.
Presenters
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Tristan Kirchner
CEO Europe at ClearBank
Tristan Kirchner is CEO for ClearBank Europe, where he leads the bank’s European operations and long term growth strategy. Based in Amsterdam, he is responsible for scaling ClearBank’s cloud native clearing and embedded banking capabilities across the continent.

Tristan brings more than 25 years of payments and financial services experience, having held senior leadership roles at Uber, Barclays, Visa and American Express, with deep expertise in European payments infrastructure and regulation.

Prior to joining ClearBank, Tristan served as CEO of Uber Payments B.V., where he led a regulated European payments entity and worked at Board level to align commercial growth with regulatory requirements.
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Karine Martinez
Head of Strategic Partnerships
Karine Martinez brings over 15 years of financial services and fintech experience to her role as Head of Strategic Partnerships at Wallester, which she joined in 2026. With a career spanning wealth management, embedded finance, and B2B payments, Karine has built a reputation for forging high-value partnerships that drive commercial growth across European markets.

Prior to Wallester, Karine served as Head of Sales at Edenred Payment Solutions, where she secured the Aazzur partnership and delivered strategic client wins, including Thinkmoney and Hnry. Before that, she held a series of progressive leadership roles at Railsr - including Head of Fintech Team and Head of Inbound Sales for Europe - where she won landmark clients such as Tradeshift, FxPro, and CEX.io while scaling partnership pipelines across Core Markets UK and Europe. Most recently, she created a new strategic partnership with Paymentology, further expanding her track record of building commercially significant relationships across the fintech ecosystem. Her earlier career in wealth management, including roles at UBS Wealth and LCL, gave her a strong foundation in investment strategy and client portfolio management.

A recognised voice in embedded finance and B2B payments, Karine has spoken at leading industry events including the FFT Festival, FFT Embedded Finance, and FMLS 2025, and competed at the fintechMatters Vienna pitch competition. She has also appeared on panels at Warwick University and Henley Business School, and contributed to events organised by Harrington Star.
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Joy Macknight
Financial Journalist (Moderator)
Joy Macknight is an award-winning freelance financial journalist and editor who has covered the global financial services industry for over 20 years. Most recently, she was editor of The Banker, a Financial Times publication. Previously, she was features editor at Profit & Loss, editorial director at Treasury Today and editor at gtnews. She also worked as staff writer on Banking Technology and IBM Computer Today, as well as a freelancer on Computer Weekly. 
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Nacho Garcia
Managing Partner at NURABAL
Nacho García is Managing Partner at NURABAL, a payments advisory firm located in Singapore with operations in Switzerland, Sweden and Spain.
He is a board advisor and a Managing Director with many years of experience in banking, payments ,technology(AI) and fintech.
His work focuses on advising commercial banks, central banks, PSPs, issuers, fintechs and payment schemes on market entry, ecosystem development, strategic partnerships and international expansion.
At NURABAL, Nacho advises senior leadership teams on the evolution of payment ecosystems, with particular focus on interoperability, instant payment schemes, cross-border connectivity and the strategic opportunities created by new payment infrastructure, as well as new agentic payments opportunities.
With a dual background in business and technology, he combines deep payments expertise with long-standing experience in artificial intelligence, having co-founded an AI-based company as early as 2001.
Nacho is a regular conference speaker on payments innovation, instant payments, AI adoption and cross-border strategy
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