The PAY360 2024 Experience

In this blog, we take a look at the MyGuava Business (MGB) team’s experience at the PAY360 event which took place at London’s ExCel centre on 19 and 20 March 2024. This was MGB’s second time attending and from the group’s reaction, this year’s event is the best yet.

Yet again, PAY360 brought us an unparalleled payments event. The two days were just as insightful as the year before, but with a considerable surge in magnitude and a significant increase in venue size. ExCel London was the perfect location for one of the largest gatherings of the entire payments ecosystem. With 120+ speakers, 4000+ attendees and over 100 exhibitors, it’s safe to say that the MGB team was left mightily impressed by the sheer extent of innovation and inspiration under one roof, all thanks to PAY360. 

Not only did the MGB team get to explore the event, we also had the chance to exhibit and showcase our own payments solutions to attendees. We were especially proud of our stand this year, which led to some amazing conversations from fintech enthusiasts, potential clients and industry professionals. It was an amazing opportunity to highlight the payments solutions that MGB provides to the industry, as well as network with some of fintech’s biggest and brightest names. 

PAY360 panel: Are we designing inclusive payments journeys?

While the entire two days were packed with one incredible event after another, a particular highlight of the whole experience was our very own CEO, Kamal Hasanov, participating in a panel discussion. Kamal contributed to a powerful and insightful session which focused on whether or not fintech players are building inclusive payments journeys. During the discussion, Kamal shared his views on how technology can be leveraged to promote accessibility. 

Some really important questions and issues were touched upon in the panel, especially those regarding accessibility design processes and decreasing exclusion to financial products. The panel involved many different representatives, with moderator Mark O’Keefe, Ambassador of The Payments Association and speakers Parvinder Dahri-Cooper, COO of Uber UK Payments, Peter Theunis, SVP Europe, of BPC and Mali Fernando, Head of Digital Experience and Accessibility at HSBC. 

Kamal shared his industry expertise and spoke about some of the innovative solutions recently introduced by fintech organisations. As an industry leader, Kamal discussed the value of innovating and initiating proactivity instead of merely reacting to regulatory demands. By pointing out the value in performing regular gap analysis, Kamal showed how organisations can avoid the continuous ‘compliance scramble’ and instead be the progress needed in the industry. Importantly, Kamal emphasised the need to implement industry preparedness and responsibility, generated by implementing principle-driven design.

MGB’s Head of Sales, Anar Jafarli, commented on the “Genuinely eye-opening and thought-provoking” nature of the panel. The sales team are all in agreement that participating in these discussions is crucial for the team to propel forward as an industry game changer. The panel was an excellent opportunity to talk ‘big-picture’ and contemplate the fintech industry’s wider influence on society. To get together and hear industry shapers bounce ideas between each other is exactly why PAY360 stands out as an essential event. 

The speakers all brought some fascinating points of view to the panel, each supplying their own invaluable input. With the current fast-paced rate of change, conversations like these will ultimately help inform our industry’s key decision makers in the years to come. All in all, it was a fascinating discussion to be able to witness.

More industry recognition opportunities 

In addition to MGB’s participation on the panel, PAY360 provided the opportunity to collaborate with third-party organisations. Chief among these was Kamal’s interview with Ian Bailey from Harrington Starr’s FinTech Focus TV (FFTV), a channel dedicated to interviews, webinars and events centred around all things fintech. This was an incredible opportunity for us to get our story and solution out there. 

The chance to speak with Ian Bailey allowed us to share a few vital MGB updates with the wider fintech community. Kamal introduced MGB, our story and mission, as well as our strategy, unique selling points and products. We were able to bring everyone up to date on our expansion plans and other exciting developments currently in the works.

Sharing our story with other professional payments solutions via FFTV will help us expand our professional networking community and add to an amazing platform which is dedicated to exploring industry excellence. Contributing to such an informed and trend setting channel was an exciting experience and we can’t wait to see the final version of the interview.

The amount of innovators and opportunities at the event surpassed our expectations and the chance to exhibit has helped boost our visibility in the fintech sphere. It’s been a huge pleasure to network with such a vast number of payment professionals and we’re looking forward to nurturing these relationships and welcoming our new customers and partners aboard. 

Given all of this, we cannot wait for next year’s event, which will no doubt be even bigger and better!