Merchant Transact 360 2026

Brian serves as the Strategic Accounts Director for Cifas, the UK’s leading fraud prevention service, operating across multiple industry sectors, ensuring that needs are optimally met and that Cifas consolidates and enhances its position at the forefront of taking the fight to economic crime. Brian is an award-winning and internationally recognised risk professional across 40 years of experience, predominately discharging roles worldwide across many household names within financial services. He has additional consulting expertise in areas such as insurance, telecommunications, the public sector and across industries in a risk, authentication, data protection, cyber, continuity and resilience context. Brian is an innovator and thought leader and has co-authored a patent in the payment tokenisation space. He is a leading figure for both the Business Continuity Institute, co-founding two UK Chapters; and the Institute of Strategic Risk Management, as a member on the Global Advisory Council. Brian is also the founder of several burgeoning businesses and established the Institute of Corporate Resilience.

Mia Koso-Thomas is Group Head of Payments & Financial Transactions Legal at Entain plc, a global FTSE 100 gaming and entertainment group. She leads the company’s global payments legal function, advising across multiple markets on complex financial transaction and regulatory matters. With over 25 years’ experience in financial services and payments, Mia has held senior legal roles at organisations including American Express, Post Office Money, Mastercard, and Paysafe. She specialises in digital payments, fintech, and regulatory compliance, bringing deep expertise in strategic partnerships, innovation, and governance across the global payments ecosystem.

Matt is one of the UK’s leading payments experts with a mixture of practitioner and consulting experience. He is proud that his output stays on the desk and not on the shelf. He has been Managing Director of Littlewoods Personal Finance, Head of Value Added Services for Barclaycard Merchant Services and worked with many merchants since starting his consultancy career 15 years ago. This support has helped merchants excel in the world of payments and includes developing acceptance strategy, launching new payment products like credit cards and BNPL, and improving operational efficiency across the payments value chain.

Phil O’Hagan leads the Payments product strategy at Sainsbury’s, driving innovation and delivering seamless, secure, and customer-centric payment experiences across the business. With extensive expertise in product leadership and digital transformation, Phil focuses on building scalable solutions that enhance convenience and trust for millions of customers. Phil has previously worked in various Product roles at Booking.com, New Look and Holland & Barrett