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Thank you!
Thank you for attending MAG Payments Conference 26
The MAG Payments Conference brought together key stakeholders in the payments ecosystem and focused on the latest in payments technology. Thank you for joining us for a dynamic lineup of speakers, discussions on the latest payments industry topics, and robust engagement opportunities.
MAG conferences offer a unique experience, attracting payments professionals as well as those with organizational responsibilities that include payments and related matters.
- Merchant-Only sessions
- Small Group Discussions around initiatives that directly affect your interests within the payments sector.
- Timely educational sessions and networking opportunities in an intimate setting.
REGISTRATION ROSTER
Download ListTECH FORUM ROSTER
Download ListThe MAG Tech Forum is aligned with the MAG Payments Conference, offering education and networking opportunities for payments IT professionals. As the payments ecosystem evolves, the MAG Tech Forum connects payments technology experts and leading providers to explore innovative applications of these advancements.
The MAG Tech Forum aims to foster collaboration, provide tech-focused knowledge, and build relationships between merchants, their payments IT and business teams, and technology providers.
NETWORK
Connect with IT professionals at the Tech Forum and payments professionals at the MAG conference events representing
over 200 of the largest U.S. merchants which account for over $4.8 trillion in annual sales across physical and digital commerce.
DEVELOP
Create new business connections with Tech Forum and MAG merchant member attendees from every vertical
(Digital Goods and Services, Fuel and Convenience, General Retail, Grocery and Restaurant, Mobility and Transportation, Professional Services, Travel and Entertainment).
DEEP DIVE
Sessions are available on current industry topics that your business peers across the retail community are grappling with in their companies. Join the strategic discussions and learn best practices for today’s rapidly changing payments environment.
LEARN
Access to industry experts who provide the latest insights and innovative uses of new payment technologies twice a year
through panel and keynote sessions, as well as within the exhibit halls at in-person events.
CONTINUED LEARNING
Beyond the in-person meetings twice a year, participate in the MAG webinar series, online learning, MAG committees, and Working Groups offered throughout the year. Want to get even more involved? Be a panelist at one of our upcoming events and share your perspective with fellow merchants.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
#MAGPaymentsConferenceBeware of scams
Do not respond if an individual outside the MAG contacts you regarding accommodations or contact info.
MAG Payments Conference 26 Agenda
**Agenda subject to change.
Last updated on Monday, September 28, 2026. All times are in CST
Agenda Key
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Merchant Only Session
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First Time Attendee Session
Presenters
Jared Csar and Stephanie Clark, MAG
Description
New to the conference? Join this interactive session designed specifically for first-time attendees. Learn how to navigate the event, make meaningful connections, maximize your experience, and discover the programs and opportunities available throughout the conference.
The session will conclude with a 30-minute bar service, giving you the opportunity to network with fellow first-time attendees before heading into the Opening Reception, where you can continue building connections with merchants and industry peers. -
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Opening Networking Reception Sponsored by: American Express
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Registration Open
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Breakfast
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Exhibit Hall Open
AllExplore the Exhibit Hall!
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Exhibit Hall Open
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Explore the Exhibit Hall!
Description
Whether you're taking a break between sessions or eager to compete in the Exhibitor Quest for a chance to win great prizes, you won’t want to miss the action in our conference Exhibit Hall. This is the best opportunity to network with providers and discover the solutions your teams need. See you there!
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The Three Bets That Could Reshape Commerce
Presenters
Sanjay Saraf, Fiserv
Sukmani Dev, Mastercard
Joe Vasterling, Best Buy
Description
Commerce is entering a new period of transformation, driven by advances in artificial intelligence, digital money movement, and embedded financial experiences.
In this session, Fiserv Chief Product Officer Sanjay Saraf explores three questions that could define the next decade of commerce: Will AI become an active participant in commerce through autonomous agents? Will stablecoins and new forms of digital money change how businesses move value around the world? Will embedded finance transform every customer experience into a financial relationship?
Following Sanjay's opening remarks, commerce leaders discuss how they are evaluating these opportunities, where they see the greatest potential for growth, and what challenges still stand in the way of broader adoption. -
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Opening Keynote: Payments: A Wall Street View
Moderators
Beth Provenzano, MAG
Presenters
Nick Bunker, Mastercard
Tien-Tsin Huang, J.P. Morgan
Scott Anderson, The Home Depot
Description
This session will dive into where the economy is today compared to where we expected to be at the beginning of the year. Learn which economic predictions hit the mark, what changes have altered the trajectory, and what we expect to see in the coming months. Join us as we sit down with a national retailer and two highly acclaimed economists for a candid conversation relevant to all payments and finance professionals. -
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Explore the Exhibit Hall!
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Innovation Stage: Chargebacks911
Presenters
David Pirtle, Chargebacks911
Description
Most merchants and financial institutions still manage disputes across disconnected systems, leading to slower investigations, inconsistent decisions, operational inefficiencies, and limited visibility into disputes. Chargebacks911’s Unified Dispute Management System (UDMS) helps organizations centralize and modernize post-transaction operations. UDMS streamlines evidence collection, automates workflows, improves visibility into dispute trends, and enables faster, informed decisions. The presentation will show how automation, AI workflows, and cross-platform visibility enhance efficiency and help institutions meet evolving card network requirements, including Visa’s VAMP framework. -
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Innovation Stage: Radial
Presenters
Eric Anderson, Radial, Inc.
Zubin Vandrevala, Gr4vy
Description
Managed payment orchestration (MPO) helps merchants navigate the growing complexity of today’s payments ecosystem by combining orchestration technology with expert oversight. While traditional payments orchestration platforms connect gateways, processors, and payment methods through a single control layer, they still require significant internal resources to manage routing logic, compliance, fraud prevention, and performance optimization. MPO removes this burden by optimizing transaction routing in real time, managing compliance and fraud, and enabling rapid integration of new payment methods and providers. The result is improved approval rates, lower costs, and faster time-to-market. -
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Innovation Stage: Skeps
Presenters
John Ventura, Skeps
Jonathan Clarkson, The Carlisle Advisory
Description
As merchants add more financial products, such as cobranded credit cards, private-label cards, and BNPL loans, they can better serve customers with credit and loyalty programs. However, many customers face declined applications, often needing to reapply in a disjointed process. Skeps’ credit orchestration technology streamlines this by offering a seamless experience, enabling real-time pre-qualification across multiple products through a single application. This unified flow reduces friction, giving merchants control and enabling personalized financial product recommendations to meet individual needs. -
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Networking Lunch
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Tech
Tech Forum Kick-Off: Freedom! Breaking Out of Payments Lock-In Without Breaking Your Business
Presenters
Kevin Mayes, Basis Theory
Prithu Jain, Sunbit
Description
Level 100: Freedom is not about going it alone; it is about taking control. Merchants dream of designing their own payments stack, their way. However, many end up inheriting pieces over time, leading to hidden dependencies, limited flexibility, and business risks when a partner becomes a single point of failure.
This session shares a real-world guide to breaking payments lock-in and building a resilient, flexible stack. Based on actual experience, this session goes beyond theory to show how to design for optionality without disrupting the business. The presenters will discuss what worked, what didn’t, and how the effort paid off. Get an actionable guide to reduce risk, increase flexibility, and future-proof your payment strategy. -
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Explore the Exhibit Hall!
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Business
Agentic AI, Fraud, and Commerce: Don’t Panic!
BusinessThe Customer Relationship Is Up for Grabs: Are You in the Fight?
TechFrom Instruments to Symphony: Orchestrate a Payments Strategy That Performs
TechMoving from Manual Hurdles to Automated Payments Excellence
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Agentic AI, Fraud, and Commerce: Don’t Panic!
Presenters
Conrad Kennington, Accertify
Kenny Singh, Mastercard
Description
Agentic commerce is on the horizon, but there is no need to rush. Join Accertify and Mastercard as they share two distinct perspectives across fraud prevention, agentic infrastructure, and issuance. This session will help merchants separate hype from reality, understand what’s being built today, and prepare for what is next without the anxiety. -
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The Customer Relationship Is Up for Grabs: Are You in the Fight?
Moderators
Michael Hershfield, Accrue
Presenters
Rom Mascetti, Flagship Advisory Partners
Michael Fulvio, SNIPES USA
Description
Every major retailer has a loyalty program. Most have a payment strategy, but few have connected the two into a durable competitive advantage, and a wave of new forces is making that gap more dangerous. Apple, Google, and the card networks are all racing to own consumers' financial identities. AI agents are beginning to shop on behalf of consumers, removing brand loyalty entirely from the equation. And point-based programs, once a differentiator, are now table stakes that drive enrollment but not engagement.
This session examines how leading retailers are rethinking the loyalty-payments connection — moving from delayed points to real-time financial benefits, using payments data as a first-party intelligence asset, and positioning their brands for a world where AI might soon be choosing where your customers shop. -
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From Instruments to Symphony: Orchestrate a Payments Strategy That Performs
Presenters
Galit Michel, Forter
Matt Lampert, Wayfair
Sunita Monga, McDonald's Corp.
Description
Level 100: With emerging agentic shopping channels, multi-processor strategies, alternative payment methods, and regional requirements, payments are only getting more complex. It is easy to treat each of these as an individual problem: when something changes, you fix it, add a new tool, and move on. But over time, this approach adds complexity and confusion, leaving your tools working in isolation rather than in concert.
This session shares how a merchant simplified their payments stack while protecting customer experience, authorization rates, and the bottom line. They will discuss how they orchestrated a payments strategy that cuts through complexity, uses real-time data signals to route smarter, and scales and adapts as payments evolve. -
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Moving from Manual Hurdles to Automated Payments Excellence
Presenters
Itai Sela, PaytestLab
Donald Emery, CHS Payment Solutions
Description
Level 200: What does it take to ensure every transaction, from the fuel pump to the retail counter, is reliable, efficient, and customer-ready?
In this session, CHS and PaytestLab share practical insights into modern testing and automation, exploring common challenges organizations face as payments environments grow in complexity. Learn key considerations for reducing manual effort, improving quality and accuracy, and leveraging automated testing to support scalable payments operations. Through real-world examples and lessons learned, this session provides actionable ideas for organizations looking to strengthen their testing strategy and accelerate digital transformation.
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From Real-Time Rails to Real-World Adoption: Making Faster Payments Work for Merchants and Consumers
BusinessThe State of the American Consumer: How Retailers Can Better Support Today’s Financial Reality
TechBuilding a Merchant-First Future for Agentic Commerce
TechBeyond the ISO Message: Enhanced Issuer Data Sharing in Today’s eCommerce Landscape
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From Real-Time Rails to Real-World Adoption: Making Faster Payments Work for Merchants and Consumers
Moderators
Troy Carrothers, MAG
Presenters
Tim Boike, Federal Reserve Financial Services
Dennis Odiwo, ACI Worldwide
Reed Luhtanen, U.S. Faster Payments Council
Brendan Woodbury, Amazon
Description
This panel brings together senior payments leaders from government, merchant organizations, and solution providers to explore how real-time payments and Pay by Bank are moving from promise to practice. Panelists will discuss the use cases gaining traction, the operational and risk considerations merchants must address, and the consumer experience factors that will determine broader adoption. Attendees will leave with practical insights on where real-time payments can create value today and what the industry must do next to build trust, improve usability, and scale adoption. -
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The State of the American Consumer: How Retailers Can Better Support Today’s Financial Reality
Presenters
Sarah Hill, Sezzle Inc.
Description
Today’s consumer is more financially stressed than many retailers realize, with millions of Americans, including higher-income households, now living paycheck to paycheck. This session explores the current state of the American consumer, how financial pressure is reshaping shopping behavior and cart abandonment, and what retailers can do to better support today’s shoppers through greater flexibility, accessibility, and financial empowerment while also driving incremental growth and customer acquisition. -
Tech
Building a Merchant-First Future for Agentic Commerce
Presenters
Alec Valiev, Adyen
Description
Level 100: Agentic commerce is rapidly moving from experimentation to reality. AI agents can now discover products, compare prices, evaluate shipping options, and soon complete purchases autonomously for consumers. But while the demos are compelling, most enterprise commerce infrastructure was never designed for machine-driven transactions.
This session explores the critical challenges merchants face as agentic commerce scales, from fragmented protocols and machine-unfriendly product data to fraud systems built only for human behavior and checkout architectures that assume a linear customer journey. Learn what foundational capabilities merchants need to modernize now to prepare for the next era of commerce. Leave with actionable insights for evaluating readiness and prioritizing decisions that support both today’s digital commerce and tomorrow’s agentic transactions. -
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Beyond the ISO Message: Enhanced Issuer Data Sharing in Today’s eCommerce Landscape
Presenters
Jeremy Bellino and Stacey Potts, Worldpay
Description
Level 200: As eCommerce authorization environments become more complex, issuers are increasingly relying on richer, higher-quality transaction data to make real-time decisions. Yet many merchants are still underutilizing the data they already have, leaving approval rates, customer experience, and fraud outcomes on the table.
This session translates “enhanced issuer data sharing” into practical, actionable steps merchants can take today to improve payment performance. Unpack the growing importance of sharing rich data insights directly with the issuing bank in an era where traditional decisioning inputs, which are limited to what the acquirer is able to send in the ISO8583 message, can be incomplete or ambiguous, and highlight how insufficient data can contribute to unnecessary declines and degraded customer experience. Leave with a clear framework to evaluate your current data strategy, identify gaps, and take immediate steps toward maximizing approval rates, minimizing false declines, and strengthening fraud defenses through better data exchange.
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Merchant Only SIG: Restaurant and QSR
AllMerchant Only SIG: Technology
AllMerchant Only SIG: Mass Merchant
AllMerchant Only SIG: Recurring/Subscription Billing
AllMerchant Only SIG: Fuel and Convenience
AllMerchant Only SIG: eCommerce
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Merchant Only SIG: Restaurant and QSR
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Merchant Only SIG: Technology
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Merchant Only SIG: Mass Merchant
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Merchant Only SIG: Recurring/Subscription Billing
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Merchant Only SIG: Fuel and Convenience
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Merchant Only SIG: eCommerce
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Sponsors Only Session
Presenters
Lisa Crockett and Stephanie Clark, MAG
Kathy Hanna, Ex-Officio, Ex-The Kroger Co.
Description
The strongest expertise only makes an impact when it reaches merchants in a way that resonates.
This 40-minute sponsor-only session features former MAG Board Chair Kathy Hanna, who will share a candid merchant perspective on what helps solution providers build meaningful connections and what creates friction. You will also gain practical guidance for developing conference presentations, webinars, and case studies that capture merchant attention and deliver real value. We will share high-level insights from past conference feedback, introduce expanded sponsor education benefits, and highlight new opportunities for sponsors to establish themselves as thought leaders within the MAG community.
Whether you're new to MAG or looking to strengthen your engagement strategy, you'll leave with actionable ideas and a clearer path to turning your expertise into meaningful merchant impact.
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Registration Open
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Breakfast
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Exhibit Hall Open
AllExplore the Exhibit Hall!
AllInnovation Stage: Zip and Best Buy
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Exhibit Hall Open
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Explore the Exhibit Hall!
Description
Whether you're taking a break between sessions or eager to compete in the Exhibitor Quest for a chance to win great prizes, you won’t want to miss the action in our conference Exhibit Hall. This is the best opportunity to network with providers and discover the solutions your teams need. See you there! -
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Innovation Stage: Zip and Best Buy
Presenters
Peter Volynsky, Zip
Joe Vasterling and Jai Holtz, Best Buy
Description
Explore how modern consumers are redefining financial flexibility and why traditional payments systems no longer align with the realities of today’s economy. Through consumer insights, behavioral trends, and real-world examples, hear how buy now, pay later solutions are helping financially underserved Americans better manage cash flow, budget with confidence, and access everyday essentials with greater flexibility and dignity. Gain insight into the evolving role of short-term financing, the importance of designing customer experiences around real financial behaviors, and how simple, transparent payments solutions can drive stronger customer satisfaction, loyalty, and purchasing confidence for both consumers and merchants.
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Innovation Stage: Marqeta
Presenters
Ian Hopping, Marqeta
Description
The most forward-thinking retailers are not just selling products; they are building financial ecosystems that keep customers closer, longer. Explore how embedding payments, credit, and financial services directly into the customer journey is becoming the most powerful lever for growth, loyalty, and lifetime value. This session will give you a clear-eyed view of where the embedded finance opportunity is, what it takes to execute, and how the brands doing it well are pulling ahead of the pack. -
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Innovation Stage: Oliver Wyman
Presenters
Mathieu Barthelemy, Oliver Wyman
Description
Stablecoins have moved from crypto curiosity to serious payments infrastructure, but broad merchant adoption is limited and far from inevitable. This session will cut through the hype and examine what must be true for stablecoins to become a practical, scalable payment rail for large merchants. We will evaluate where stablecoins are most likely to create real merchant value, including cross-border settlement, supplier, payouts, treasury liquidity, and select international acceptance use cases. We will also pressure-test why mainstream “pay by stablecoin” checkout may face slower adoption unless consumer experience, regulation, fraud controls, and operational capabilities materially improve. Attendees will leave with a merchant-first decision framework for when to pilot, partner, monitor, or wait. -
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Beyond the Transaction: How Acquirers Can Help Merchants Drive Growth
Moderators
John Drechny, MAG
Presenters
Cameron Bready, Global Payments
Peter Jessiman, The Wendy's Company
Description
The role of the merchant acquirer is evolving. While secure, reliable payment processing remains foundational, merchants increasingly expect more from their payments partners. From improving customer experiences and unlocking data insights to supporting omnichannel commerce and global expansion, acquirers are playing a broader role in helping businesses navigate change and pursue growth.
Join Cameron Bready, CEO of Global Payments; John Drechny, CEO of MAG; and Peter Jessiman, Director, Payment Acceptance at The Wendy's Company, for a discussion about how merchants and acquirers can build stronger strategic partnerships, address emerging commerce challenges, and collaborate to create long-term value beyond the transaction. -
Business
From Signals to Savings: How Data Is Transforming Dispute and Fraud Management
BusinessHear All About It! Payments in the Headlines
TechArchitecting for Autonomy: Transaction Flows in the Age of AI Agents
TechPayment Testing: The Silent Guardian of Payment Conversions
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From Signals to Savings: How Data Is Transforming Dispute and Fraud Management
Presenters
Brandy Wood and Steve Mathison, Fiserv
Ivan Fernandez, Google Cloud Payments
Description
Dispute and fraud management is changing as gaming, retail, tech, and telecom companies use data in new ways throughout the payments journey. From scoring transactions to improving payment feeds for approvals, and using alerts to prevent chargebacks or update fraud rules, each industry applies data differently to tackle challenges.
This session features a fireside chat with Google and real-world examples showing how connected data helps teams resolve cases faster, reduce losses, and improve customer experiences. Attendees will discover fresh approaches and practical lessons from across industries, inspiring new ways to think about data and risk. -
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Hear All About It! Payments in the Headlines
Presenters
Mark Ranta, EY
Francesco Falcone, Checkout.com
JR Scordino, Accrue
Description
This panel will dive into what is making news in payments, focusing the discussion on current trends and late-breaking news from industry announcements to regulatory updates to new fraud vectors. The panel will dive into what these headlines could mean to our ecosystem through the merchant lens. The audience will play a key role in guiding the panel toward the topics that matter most to them. Participation is not optional; it’s required. Join your peers as our panel takes you on a tour de force into the weeks that were and tries to make sense of where payments are headed in this fun and interactive session. -
Tech
Architecting for Autonomy: Transaction Flows in the Age of AI Agents
Presenters
Melissa Shields, VGS
Sarah Arnio, Walmart
Brian Cullen, Sony Playstation
Description
Level 100: While "AI readiness" is a popular buzzword, the operational reality for merchants is a complex overhaul of ecosystem transparency. This session moves past the hype to examine the methodologies required to support autonomous purchasing. We will explore the shift toward machine-readable data streams and how to re-engineer checkout for delegated authority while not losing transparency into the customer identity. This session will provide the blueprint for managing the next generation of transaction flows. -
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Payment Testing: The Silent Guardian of Payment Conversions
Presenters
Dean Hickman-Smith, Testilo Inc
Description
Trillions of dollars circulate daily through digital payments across various markets, devices, currencies, and numerous local payment methods. However, not all transactions are successful, and more critically, not every failure is visible. Many payments failures go unnoticed because they don’t generate error logs, alerts, or dashboard signals. They simply vanish, taking revenue and customer trust along with them. Most merchants remain unaware that this is occurring.
This session exposes the “invisible revenue leak” and shows how modern payments testing uncovers silent failures across real-world customer journeys. Learn how leading merchants identify hidden conversion blockers, expose root causes across geographies and payments methods, and rapidly resolve issues that traditional monitoring misses. If you care about approval rates, customer experience, and unlocking revenue you did not know you were losing, this is a session you cannot afford to miss.
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Business
The Science Behind Smarter Payments Routing
BusinessThe VAMP Playbook: Thresholds, Tactics, and What's Actually Working
TechThe Autonomous Finance Era: Build Your Payments Back-Office for Real-Time Revenue Intelligence
TechTrust-by-Design for Agentic Commerce: Securing Discovery, Purchase, and Post-Purchase
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The Science Behind Smarter Payments Routing
Presenters
Jeff Hallenbeck, Adyen
Mark Ericksen, Deloitte
Description
Do you have multiple payment providers? Are you considering it as part of your strategic vision? This session talks about the most scientific way to truly test and measure performance between multiple payment providers to ensure you are maximizing performance, cost, and the time value of money. Adyen and Deloitte share practical lessons from operating a multi-PSP routing strategy at scale, including how to segment volume to achieve statistical significance, how consistent application of central services ensures fair provider comparisons, and how to effectively retry failed transactions. -
Business
The VAMP Playbook: Thresholds, Tactics, and What's Actually Working
Presenters
Frank Frantz, Chargeflow
David Stineburg, Sweetwater
Description
Visa's VAMP program has consolidated the chargeback and fraud monitoring landscape, and merchants who have not rebuilt their dispute strategy around it are already behind. This session combines the compliance fundamentals (what VAMP measures, where the thresholds sit, how remediation works) with the operational reality (what monitoring programs actually catch, where merchants are getting surprised, and what a defensible dispute prevention stack looks like in practice). Leave with a clear picture of where you stand relative to VAMP thresholds, a prioritized framework for closing the gaps, and practical tactics drawn from real dispute data across merchant categories. -
Tech
The Autonomous Finance Era: Build Your Payments Back-Office for Real-Time Revenue Intelligence
Presenters
Swapnil Mengawade, Optimus Fintech
Description
Level 100: Enterprise finance teams are drowning in fragmented payments data, rising reconciliation complexity, and growing operational risk. There are heavily disconnected systems which do not exchange data at the speed of business. Add to it the complexity of multiple PSPs, acquirers, payment methods, currencies, fee structures, settlement models and compliance obligations. All while transaction volumes continue to scale globally.
This session shares how a leading global merchant transformed payments operations from a reactive cost center into an intelligent, AI-powered profit optimization engine by modernizing reconciliation, fee validation, payment visibility, and exception management. We will discuss why traditional back-office payment operations are failing amid the complexity of modern transactions. Walk away with practical frameworks enterprise finance leaders can adopt to future-proof payments operations. -
Tech
Trust-by-Design for Agentic Commerce: Securing Discovery, Purchase, and Post-Purchase
Presenters
Hari Krishna Annam, Visa
Description
Level 200: As AI agents begin influencing product discovery, purchase decisions, fulfillment, and post-purchase support, merchants must prepare for a commerce journey that may no longer be fully human-led but still must be trusted. This session will explore how a trust-by-design approach can help merchants secure the full agentic commerce lifecycle by connecting discovery, checkout, risk, and post-purchase intelligence. Attendees will learn how trusted data foundations, permissioning, identity signals, and real-time risk controls can help reduce fraud, minimize disputes, and protect conversion. The session will also show how richer transaction context can create more transparent customer experiences as AI-enabled commerce scales.
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Networking Lunch
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Business
Supercharging Merchant Payments With the Power of AI/ML
BusinessPay Later, Built for Loyalty: Rethinking BNPL as a Brand and Acquisition Engine
TechMeasure As You Move: Building Payments Data Into Change
TechBeyond Payments Routing: AI-Powered Unified Commerce Orchestration
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Business
Supercharging Merchant Payments With the Power of AI/ML
Moderators
Reed Luhtanen, U.S. Faster Payments Council
Presenters
Susan Peng, BNY
Kerrie Larpenter, Trustly
Attie Muse, Verizon
Description
As merchants look for ways to lower payments acceptance costs, reduce chargebacks, and lessen dependency on card networks, pay-by-bank is gaining momentum as a compelling alternative. But while the model offers clear structural advantages, it has often faced challenges around checkout friction, payment failure, fraud risk, and operational complexity.
This panel explores how artificial intelligence is changing that equation. This session highlights the operational impact of AI in reconciliation, exception management, and settlement forecasting. Come away with a clear understanding of how to prioritize high-impact use cases, measure success against business KPIs, and deploy AI in a way that augments existing payment strategies rather than complicates them. -
Business
Pay Later, Built for Loyalty: Rethinking BNPL as a Brand and Acquisition Engine
Moderators
Adrian Brown, ClarityPay
Presenters
Tom Carter, ClarityPay
Elchonon Shaglov, Diamonds International
Chip Baker, Summit Path Partners
Description
Most BNPL programs were designed to close a transaction. The opportunity now is to design them to open a relationship. In this fireside chat, moderator Adrian Brown leads a conversation with an independent credit strategy advisor and a luxury retail merchant navigating this shift in real time, exploring what it looks like to put brand and loyalty at the center of a financing program, rather than treating it as a checkout afterthought. The conversation will cover how tailored pay later programs are being used to drive customer acquisition, strengthen co-brand and loyalty initiatives, and create a seamless path to repeat purchase and what merchants should be asking about their current program to understand whether it's working as hard as their business needs it to. -
Tech
Measure As You Move: Building Payments Data Into Change
Presenters
Josh Mathers and Erika Curtis, W. Capra Consulting Group, Inc.
Description
Level 100: Businesses are constantly making changes that affect payments: adding new channels, adjusting fraud rules, modifying retry logic, routing traffic, changing provider configurations, launching payment methods, tuning authentication, improving checkout flows, and updating customer communications. In the real world, these changes rarely happen one at a time. That creates a measurement problem. When changes occur, or worse, overlap, it becomes difficult to know what actually moved the business outcome.
This session focuses on how merchants can bring data planning into the change process before changes reach production. The discussion will explore how payments, data, technology, fraud, finance, operations, and product teams can align on the hypothesis, expected outcome, KPIs, guardrail metrics, affected populations, data sources, and monitoring plan before implementation. -
Tech
Beyond Payments Routing: AI-Powered Unified Commerce Orchestration
Presenters
Dyaneswaran Balakrishnan and Sumeet Mail, Aurus Inc
Description
Level 200: Modern payments orchestration is evolving beyond transaction routing into a unified commerce intelligence layer that connects payments, customer identity, CRM systems, loyalty platforms, operational workflows, and merchant ecosystems across digital and physical channels.
Explore how intelligent orchestration platforms can unify customer engagement capabilities such as loyalty programs, personalized offers, targeted promotions, digital receipts, and CRM-driven experiences alongside operational payments intelligence and ecosystem automation. Hear important considerations around security, governance, API protection, privacy, and human-in-the-loop operational controls as merchants adopt increasingly intelligent and connected commerce infrastructures.
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Explore the Exhibit Hall!
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Innovation Stage: Klarna
Presenters
Milton Pappas, Klarna
Description
AI agents are moving into the checkout itself, rewriting how people discover and pay. In this presentation, see how Klarna is embedding flexible payments into AI-driven shopping and what merchants should do now to stay discoverable as agents reshape the path to purchase. -
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Innovation Stage: RedBridge
Presenters
Chelsey Kukuk, RedBridge
Description
Interchange rates get all the attention, but the real leakage is usually buried elsewhere on your acquirer statement, in charges nobody thinks to question. Using real (redacted) statement excerpts, we'll expose where these fees hide and share practical savings strategies merchants can act on right away. -
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Innovation Stage: TodayPay
Presenters
Jeremy Balkin, TodayPay
Description
Refunds remain one of the largest payment flows in commerce, yet merchants are forced to rely on infrastructure built decades ago. As customer expectations rise and the VAMP threshold increases the cost of disputes, merchants are looking for new ways to resolve issues faster. See how modern refund infrastructure can reduce friction, improve customer satisfaction, and help mitigate dispute risk, all while delivering refunds in seconds, not days. -
Business
Behind the Seamless Experience: Managing Payments Through Growth, M&A, and Complexity
BusinessLoyalty as Code: The Issuer-Merchant Data Loop That Lifts Customer Lifetime Value
TechLeveraging Payments Data to Drive Customer Centricity: Turning Transaction Flows Into a Competitive Moat in the AI Era
TechThe Ambient Checkout: How Contextual Commerce Is Rewriting the Rules of Payments
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Business
Behind the Seamless Experience: Managing Payments Through Growth, M&A, and Complexity
Moderators
Steve Vincent, Nuvei
Presenters
Carrie Rule and Greg Humphreys, Alaska Airlines
Description
Join payments leaders from Alaska Airlines for a candid discussion on modernizing payments in complex enterprise environments.
The panel will explore strategies for consolidating payment platforms, aligning payments approaches across business units, maintaining strong authorization performance, managing risk, and reducing operational complexity while supporting business continuity. Drawing on firsthand experience, the discussion highlights practical insights, lessons learned, and the real-world decisions involved in creating a more unified and scalable payments ecosystem. -
Business
Loyalty as Code: The Issuer-Merchant Data Loop That Lifts Customer Lifetime Value
Presenters
Jay Neidermeyer, Synchrony Financial
Kara Kazazean, Sam's Club
Description
Co-branded credit cards have always been a key component of a loyalty program; it’s the only payments instrument where the issuer and merchant share the customer. In the age of AI agents and embedded checkouts, that shared customer is becoming a shared data asset that can be modeled in real time.
This discussion goes into what an issuer-merchant data loop looks like in production: what data is exchanged, how it impacts the customer experience, and how success is measured. Synchrony and Sam’s Club will share a live example: the data, the privacy guardrails, the model targets, and the key metrics for success. Attendees will leave with a blueprint for turning their card program from a tender option into a loyalty operating system.
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Tech
Leveraging Payments Data to Drive Customer Centricity: Turning Transaction Flows Into a Competitive Moat in the AI Era
Presenters
Florencia Ardissone, J.P. Morgan
Ken Grogan, Wakefern Food Corp.
Alex Paxson, Shell
Description
Level 100: Every transaction is a signal of customer behavior, preferences, and how needs change over time. In a loyalty economy, aggregated payments data can outperform traditional CRM because it reflects actual actions rather than clicks or claims. Successful brands will use payments data for smarter segmentation, relevant offers, and improved retention. This session demonstrates how leading organizations decode customer patterns and personalize at scale, showing how to use payments intelligence responsibly to strengthen trust, loyalty, and privacy standards. -
Tech
The Ambient Checkout: How Contextual Commerce Is Rewriting the Rules of Payments
Presenters
Madhu Vasu, Verifone
Description
Level 200: The physical payment checkout is disappearing, and that is exactly the point. For decades, the payment moment was a defined, discrete event: a terminal, a tap, a signature, a receipt. But the convergence of embedded payments, AI-assisted commerce, biometric authentication, and autonomous retail environments is fundamentally changing where, when, and how transactions occur. This session explores the architecture of contextual commerce, where payments are not a destination but a natural outcome of context. When a customer's identity, intent, preferences, and purchasing history are understood in real time, the payment moment can be anticipated, personalized, and completed without friction, without interruption, and increasingly without conscious action.
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Business
Own Your Stack, Win the Basket: A Merchant's Path to the $42B Embedded Offers Opportunity
TechAgentic Commerce: Shaping the Next Era of Retail by Establishing Standards, Trust, and Interoperability
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Business
Own Your Stack, Win the Basket: A Merchant's Path to the $42B Embedded Offers Opportunity
Presenters
Jakob Harrison, FIS
Barry Powers, Amazon
Chirag Patel, The Home Depot
Description
There is a $42.4 billion opportunity sitting in missed and unredeemed offers, and for merchants, capturing it starts less with a new rewards program than with how their payment stack is built. According to recent PYMNTS research conducted with FIS, only 13% of online and 10% of in-store offers are applied automatically today. That is why leading merchants are rethinking their payments infrastructure and moving toward orchestration: a control layer that lets them route transactions, plug in new payment types, and respond to offers in real-time.
Shoppers already expect discounts to find them, fit them, and apply themselves automatically. When merchants can surface and apply every relevant offer at the point of decision, they win incremental traffic and bigger baskets with no new offer spend and no new loyalty program to run. During this session, hear a leading merchant share their modernization journey, a cloud partner explain the infrastructure behind it, and FIS on the item-level offer intelligence that a modern stack unlocks. -
Tech
Agentic Commerce: Shaping the Next Era of Retail by Establishing Standards, Trust, and Interoperability
Presenters
Steve Cole, MAG
Itai Sela, Secure Technology Alliance
EMVCo, Oliver Manahan
Lauren Robitaille, 99Fintech
Description
AI agents are evolving from discovery assistants into autonomous buyers, reshaping how consumers purchase products and services. But unlocking the full potential of agentic commerce requires trust, interoperability, and shared standards across the ecosystem.
Join this panel of industry veterans as they share the perspectives of merchants, other payments industry stakeholders, and standards organizations, and how collaboration among them will define the next era of digital commerce. From trusted identity and secure payments to data sovereignty and ecosystem governance, the panel examines foundational frameworks needed to enable seamless, scalable, and responsible agentic transactions.
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All
Closing Keynote: Merchant Reality Check: The State of Payment Acceptance
Moderators
John Drechny, MAG
Presenters
Pam Stults, Marriott International
Mike Cook, Walmart
Ron Collins, CommonSpirit Health
Description
For the first time in nearly a decade, MAG brings a merchant-only general session to the main stage. Mike Cook (Walmart), Pam Stults (Marriott), and Ron Collins (CommonSpirit Health) offer a candid, merchant-level view of today’s payment acceptance landscape. The discussion will explore evolving dynamics across the ecosystem, including the role of third-party partners, ongoing chargeback challenges, maximizing the value, and the impact of rapidly advancing technologies. Attendees will gain practical insight into how leading merchants are navigating complexity while shaping the future of payments. -
All
Closing Remarks
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All
Networking Reception Sponsored By: Synchrony
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All
Registration Open
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All
Breakfast
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All
Emerging Insights: Litigation Update (MDL-1720, IFPA, etc.)
AllCore Insights: Beyond Borders, a Global Merchant Exchange
AllTrending Views: Fraud Trends
AllTrending Views: EBT SNAP
AllTrending Views: Technology Trends
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All
Emerging Insights: Litigation Update (MDL-1720, IFPA, etc.)
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All
Core Insights: Beyond Borders, a Global Merchant Exchange
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All
Trending Views: Fraud Trends
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All
Trending Views: EBT SNAP
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All
Trending Views: Technology Trends
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All
Emerging Insights: Agentic Commerce
AllCore Insights: Payment Teams Org and Structures
AllTrending Views: Alternative Payment Methods
AllTrending Views: Debit Routing and Tokenization
AllTrending Views: Chargebacks
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All
Emerging Insights: Agentic Commerce
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All
Core Insights: Payment Teams Org and Structures
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All
Trending Views: Alternative Payment Methods
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All
Trending Views: Debit Routing and Tokenization
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All
Trending Views: Chargebacks
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All
Networking Break
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All
Annual Member Meeting
Presenters
John Drechny, MAG
Scott Anderson, The Home Depot
Joe Vasterling, Best Buy
Description
In accordance with the Merchant Advisory Group's bylaws, all MAG merchant members are invited to attend the Annual Meeting of the Membership, held in conjunction with the MAG Payments Conference 26. This essential gathering serves as a cornerstone of our organization’s governance and community engagement. This is a key opportunity for members to stay informed, exercise their rights, and participate in the continued success and strategic direction of the MAG. -
All
Inside MAG: A Conversation on the Merchant Mission
Moderators
John Drechny, MAG
Presenters
Ann Schmitt, Ex-The Walt Disney & MAG Board Chair
Scott Anderson, The Home Depot
Description
In this interactive discussion, Ann Schmitt (Past Chair, MAG), Scott Anderson (Chair, MAG), and John Drechny (CEO, MAG) reflect on the organization’s journey and continued evolution. Together, they will share perspectives on how MAG has consistently elevated the merchant voice, delivered meaningful value to its members, and adapted to industry change. The session will also look ahead to how MAG will continue to serve as the definitive advocate for merchants in payments. -
All
Voice of the Merchant 2026: The Next Frontier in Merchant Payments
Presenters
Rick Oxenhandler and Mathieu Barthelemy, Oliver Wyman
Description
The Voice of the Merchant study returns for its fourth edition, providing an exclusive look at how leading merchants are adapting their payments strategies in an increasingly dynamic commerce environment. Building on insights from previous editions, this year's research tracks evolving priorities across payments operations, organizational design, payment acceptance, and orchestration, while exploring the industry's next frontier including AI, agentic commerce, and stablecoins. Join us to benchmark your strategy against industry peers and gain practical insights into the trends shaping the future of merchant payments. -
All
The Parallel Paths of Advocacy and Collaboration
Moderators
Beth Provenzano, MAG
Presenters
Kelly Andrus, MAG
Dan Swanson, DCSwanson LLC
Austen Jensen, Best Buy
Description
The payments landscape isn't slowing down, and neither is MAG. 2026 has brought a steady stream of regulatory, legislative, and legal developments from payment account and check service proposals to interchange fee prohibition law setbacks and the proposed resolution of the decades-old MDL-1720 interchange litigation. Hear the latest from advocacy leaders on the issues shaping merchant priorities, while also gaining insight into the collaborative work helping retailers navigate the operational impact of these changes. Leave with a clearer understanding of what's happening, what it means for your business, and what's coming next. -
All
Closing Remarks
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All
Farewell Refreshments
Agenda Key
Merchant Only Session
Conference Sponsors and Exhibitors
Sponsorship Value:
As a MAG exhibitor and/or Conference sponsor, merchants will:
- Recognize your company brand, products, and services
- See you as a supporter and partner in the payments community
- View your company as a relevant solution to current or future payments needs
REMINDER: You must be a current MAG Annual Sponsor in good standing to be a Conference and/or Tech Forum sponsor. View the MAG Annual Sponsor Listing here.
Attendee List to Sponsors:
Attendee Lists: Beginning July 20, the MAG will post an attendance roster on the conference website and update it weekly. As an added benefit to MAG Annual Sponsors, we will send two (2) pre-conference registration lists (September 7 and September 14), and one (1) post-conference attendee list (October 5) with the contact information of registrants who have given their permission to share. We ask that you limit your number of electronic promotions to conference attendees to a maximum of two (2) email communications.
Speakers
Thank for you being a valued MAG partner and agreeing to share your expertise and insights with our conference attendees.
MAG Payments Conference 26 Sponsors
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