Alona Shevtsova, who runs Sends, sat alongside senior banking and payments executives at the Middle East Banking Innovation Summit to debate how real-time payments, digital wallets and cross-border infrastructure are evolving.
On 17 September the Middle East Banking Innovation Summit (MEBIS 2026) staged its 17th edition, pulling banking, fintech and technology leaders to Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai. Alona Shevtsova, CEO of Sends, joined the experts on the bill and spoke in the panel “Payment Innovation in Banking: Real Time, Cross Border and Wallet Driven Evolution”, unpicking the forces that will shape the next generation of payments across the region.
Alongside Alona Shevtsova sat 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.
The panel mapped out where lenders already earn hard returns from payments that settle instantly, how wallets and ever tighter-knit digital finance ecosystems reshape what customers demand, and what must still change to speed up cross-border transfers and run them more efficiently.
Interoperability dominated much of the exchange. Because money now hops across platforms, currencies and jurisdictions within seconds, banks and fintech firms have to wire long-standing banking systems into fresh payment rails while still guarding security, meeting compliance duties and keeping services running.
“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,” said Alona Shevtsova, who leads Sends as CEO.
Alona Shevtsova has spoken at industry debates around the world throughout 2026, and Dubai extends that run. Earlier in the year she joined expert panels at PAY360 in London, tackling agentic AI in AML and KYC and tracing how embedded finance is growing up, then contributed to Riyadh sessions covering AI, risk, blockchain and digital finance.
Speaking at MEBIS also shows how firmly Sends now engages with the Middle East financial ecosystem, as the region keeps pouring money into real-time payment rails, digital banking and fresh ways to deliver cross-border financial services.
MEBIS draws C-level bankers, technology leaders and innovators from across the Middle East. Organisers built the 2026 programme around AI and intelligent automation, digital banking, payments innovation, open banking, embedded finance, cybersecurity, data strategy and the financial infrastructure that comes next.
About Sends
Sends builds financial technology from the UK, delivering payment services to companies and individuals who trade in domestic and international markets. Smartflow Payments Limited trades as Sends and holds Financial Conduct Authority authorisation as an Electronic Money Institution.
