With real-time payments, digital wallets and cross-border infrastructure dominating the agenda, Alona Shevtsova, chief executive of Sends, sat alongside senior banking and payments executives at the Middle East Banking Innovation Summit to weigh up how each is developing.
Staged at Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai on 17 September, the 17th Middle East Banking Innovation Summit (MEBIS 2026) brought leaders in banking, fintech and technology together. One of the industry experts contributing was Alona Shevtsova, CEO of Sends, who took part in the panel “Payment Innovation in Banking: Real Time, Cross Border and Wallet Driven Evolution”, a session given over to the forces that will shape the next generation of payments regionally.
Appearing beside her were 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.
Over the course of the session, attention fell on where financial institutions are already drawing concrete value from instant payments, how wallets and steadily more connected digital finance ecosystems are reshaping what customers want, and what remains to be done to make transfers between countries quicker and leaner.
Because money now travels across platforms, currencies and jurisdictions instantly, interoperability took on particular prominence. Banks and fintech firms are left with the job of wiring long-established banking systems into newer payment rails while keeping security, compliance and operational resilience intact.
“The future of payments will not be defined by a single technology or payment method. The real opportunity is in connecting the ecosystem around the customer. Real-time payments, wallets and cross-border infrastructure need to work together so that moving money becomes simpler for the user, while the technology, compliance and risk infrastructure behind that experience continues to evolve,” added Sends chief executive Alona Shevtsova.
Coming after a run of international industry debates through 2026, the Dubai panel was the latest entry in Alona Shevtsova’s diary. She had earlier joined expert panels at PAY360 in London, where agentic AI in AML and KYC and the maturing of embedded finance were under discussion, and contributed to Riyadh sessions built around AI, risk, blockchain and digital finance.
As Gulf markets continue to pour investment into instant payment rails, digital banking and fresh cross-border models for financial services, the MEBIS slot equally signals how much closer Sends is moving to the Middle East financial ecosystem.
Pitched at C-suite banking executives, technology leaders and innovators based across the Middle East, MEBIS has built its 2026 programme around digital banking, open banking and payments innovation, plus intelligent automation and AI, cybersecurity, embedded finance, next-generation financial infrastructure and data strategy.
About Sends
Based in the UK, Sends is a financial technology company that provides payment services to businesses and individuals working in domestic as well as international markets. Smartflow Payments Limited, which trades as Sends, holds Electronic Money Institution authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority.