Thibault de Barsy (The Payments Association EU): The business club for payments’ decision makers

Thibault founded the association 3 years ago in Luxembourg. He is a leading manager at the crossroads of finance and marketing and has over 20 years of experience in the financial and ICT sector in three countries. Since October 2019, he has participated as a weekly guest speaker on the Belgian news TV channel LN24 as an Economics columnist.

Can you present your association in a few words?

The Payments Association EU is a business club of decision makers in the payments industry. Our association continues to grow, with now more than 60 members and with many more joining us in the coming months. Some of our notable members include Mastercard, Visa, Amazon, eBay, Banking Circle, SWIFT, J.P. Morgan and many more. As an association, our main goal is to facilitate business for all of our members across the European Union. We help our members grow their network and develop their business through leveraging their brand and product offering.

“As an association, our main goal is to facilitate business for all of our members across the European Union.”

What actions do you carry out within your association?

We bring our members together through our roadshow of events throughout Europe’s capitals and payment hubs and facilitate networking between our members as well as the national payments ecosystem. Our calendar is booked and ready for 2023, with our next events in Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Madrid, Berlin, Dublin and Munich. We also hold monthly regulator working groups where our members can meet and discuss with peers as well the decision makers of various regulatory bodies. Among others : the European Banking Authority, the European commission, national regulators and central Banks. PA EU also hosts three conferences a year: our annual general meeting, our “Payment’s Tomorrow” conference and the “Pay360” conference in London. We also offer exclusive training courses members can use to train new recruits or specialize them in defined fields like crypto and regulation. There is also a wealth of information on our website which our members can feed along with their own content.

How does your association adapt to the evolution of public policies, mentalities and the Luxembourg way of life?

Luxembourg as a country has a strategic goal of growing as a major hub of financial services in Europe and the world. Luxembourg for Finance and the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT) are examples of initiatives supported by the Luxembourg government in achieving this goal and they were our initial “godfathers” when we settled in. As Luxembourg was already a payments hub itself, it became a natural starting point for the association and allowed us to gather our first members.