COO, South African Reserve Bank

Pradeep Maharaj is the COO of SARB, responsible for its support services cluster, including the Human Capital and Operations clusters.

Appointed when the position was first created in 2012, he has extensive experience in the role, including overseeing the bank’s financial, business systems and technology, and facilities management functions.

Previously, he was the Group Executive: Currency Cluster at SARB, responsible for the Bank’s currency management and security functions, overseeing the South African Bank Note Company and South African Mint.

Before joining SARB, Pradeep held various positions at Absa Capital, Transnet, and the Department of Finance and Economic Affairs of the Gauteng Provincial Government.

Jan Pilbauer has over 15 years of experience in the payments industry, consistently delivering impactful national initiatives and transformations.

Currently the CEO of Al Etihad Payments, he leads the team transforming and modernising the UAE payments ecosystem, including Aani, its new instant payments platform.

Before that, Jan was the CEO at BankservAfrica, Africa’s largest clearing house, where he implemented key initiatives, such as PayShap, South Africa’s domestic instant payments scheme.

As Executive Director and Chief Information Officer at Payments Canada, he contributed to Canada’s payments modernisation journey.

Jan is passionate about financial technology and inclusion, and continues to make significant contributions to the global payments industry.

Currently, Vukile Davidson is responsible for coordinating both regulatory and public policy issues regarding the safety, soundness and integrity of the financial sector.

He has also contributed to various key financial sector reforms, including South Africa’s resolution framework and policy issues as diverse as climate change and financial innovation.

Previously, Vukile worked at the Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland on topics such as the challenges facing SMEs and the decline in correspondent banking services, specifically focusing on the Americas, Middle East and North Africa, and Asia.

Vukile holds an MSc in Development Economics and Finance from the University of London.

Ghita Erling has over 24 years of experience in corporate and retail banking, transactional banking and payments.

Currently, she leads PASA, the industry body mandated by the South African Reserve Bank to assist it in managing the country’s National Payment System.

Ghita has been instrumental in working with the broader South African payments industry to design the Payments Industry Body, an inclusive body for all payments community entities, which will ultimately replace PASA.

Previously, she was responsible for building and operationalising the payments function for the Discovery Bank startup. She has served as a director on the boards of BankservAfrica and SBV Services.

At SARB, Arif Ismail directs payment product strategies for the Payments Ecosystem Modernisation programme.

Previously, he served as Deputy Division Chief in the Payments and Infrastructure Division at the IMF, co-leading efforts on payments, financial market infrastructures and digital money matters.

Arif is passionate about digitalisation's impact on society and how it can enhance social welfare while mitigating risks to both domestic and international monetary systems.

Arif holds a BSc in mathematics and physics, a PhD in business administration and management from GIBS, and a DBA in strategic leadership and transformation. His interests include change management, complex adaptive systems, psycho-social cognition and leadership theory.

Leo Lipis is the founder of Lipis Advisors and has 25 years of experience in payment systems management, consulting and research on all six continents.

Prior to launching Lipis Advisors, he held positions in payments strategy and analysis with commercial banks, clearing houses and central banks.

Leo works chiefly in transaction banking, payment system strategy and design, and treasury management.

He has led numerous studies on payment system functionality, covering all types of payments in over 70 countries.

Under his leadership, Lipis Advisors has completed engagements for over 200 clients on a wide range of subjects across the payments spectrum.

Lyle Horsley is the head of fintech at the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and currently serves as the chairperson of the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group (IFWG) in South Africa. In her current role, areas of focus include crypto assets; open finance; central bank digital currencies; artificial intelligence and tokenisation, and advancing practical explorative projects to understand the policy and regulatory implications of emerging technologies for the financial sector. The SARB’s Fintech Unit also co-leads on the IFWG’s Innovation Hub, made of the regulatory guidance unit, the regulatory sandbox and the innovation accelerator.

Lyle is an admitted attorney and conveyancer in SA and obtained her LLM (cum laude) from the University of Witwatersrand. Previously, Lyle worked as a lead policy specialist at the Prudential Authority and clerked for the former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

She successfully completed the Cambridge Open Banking and Finance for Regulators Online Programme and the Cambridge SupTech Lab Innovation Leaders Programme, through the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Cambridge Judge Business School.

Brad Gillis has over 25 years’ experience in payments and financial services. His portfolio covers over 20 countries across Africa. He also leads the Remittances Domain for Standard Bank.

His broad expertise includes national and regional high and low value payment and EFT systems, card, wallets and remittances, payments association participation, and collaboration with various industry role players, including central banks across the continent.

Brad has authored several research articles on payments and transactional banking in South Africa and African markets, and regularly presents at payment and financial services conferences.

Before joining Standard Bank, Brad was CEO of BankservAfrica’s Regulated Business.

Vickey Ganesh is an international payments practitioner with 26 years of experience in strategy and solution formulation.

He has worked in corporate roles and as a private consultant to commercial banks and payments stakeholders.

Vickey has excellent insight into national and regional interbank settlement schemes, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

He has been responsible for large-value payments systems in technology and payments operations, focusing on the design and build of domestic and cross-border payments and settlement capabilities with various central banks. Through these advanced projects, he has contributed to the industry book of knowledge on domestic and regional payments, benefiting the entire industry.

Dave Glass is an expert in all aspects of enterprise payments systems, and value-added services distribution. He has over 20 years of industry experience, gained from working in Australia, Ireland and South Africa.

An entrepreneur at heart, Dave has played a key role in growing Electrum into a highly respected leading cloud payments technology company in South Africa.

His extensive work history has been exclusively focused on digital technology relating to banking and finance, retail, and mobile payments acceptance.

Dave holds a Master’s degree in Management Information Systems from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Herman Singh brings a unique mix of business, technology, leadership, academic and creative expertise to the stage.

For almost 25 years, he has served in director level roles, either directly or as an advisor. His experience covers a wide range of industries, including cellular communications, digital technologies, banking, financial services, and more.

He is currently a professor in practice at the University of Johannesburg Business School, and an adjunct professor at both UCT’s Graduate School of Business and Duke University, USA.

Through Future Advisory, Herman helps both start-ups and established concerns develop future-proof strategies for success in a digitally disrupted market.

Katlego Maphai has twenty years of experience in technology. He is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Yoco. This market-leading digital payments platform provides payment acceptance solutions, software-driven business tools, and working capital for small businesses in South Africa.

His previous work involved venture development at Rocket Internet, where he helped to set up the Jumia pan-African e-commerce platform in Nigeria in 2012. Katlego started his career in management consulting, media, and technology management consulting at Accenture and then Delta Partners.

He graduated from the University of Cape Town with a degree in Business Science Information Systems.