The following interview, with Úna Dillon, VP of Global Expansion & Member Advocacy for the MRC, provides a sneak peek at the content, ambitions, and insights attendees can expect from MRC Virtual 2022.
MRC Virtual 2022, the highly anticipated online payments and fraud prevention event is coming 12 July.
This full day virtual experience promises a wealth of content from the MRC’s Vegas and Berlin in-person conferences, reproduced in partnership with the original presenters for an engaging virtual experience accessible from anywhere.
What is the overall goal of MRC Virtual, and why did you choose this online format?
The primary motivation for this event is to increase accessibility to our MRC members globally and to reach out to those with an interest in our payments and fraud prevention agenda. We want to bring this exceptional content from our in-person conferences to industry professionals all over the world, whether they can travel or not. It’s no secret travel has become more complex for people and our goal is to make sure everyone, regardless of their location, can learn from our industry-leading speakers.
We’re also conscious of those who may have attended the Berlin or Vegas conferences, but due to the high volume of sessions, may not have been able to see all the talks they wanted to see, or engage with the speakers whose sessions had the highest attendance. This is the perfect opportunity to easily access those missed presentations and speaker interaction opportunities.
The event is free to attend for MRC members. We wanted to make the repeated content available to as many people as possible and we expect this virtual format will help facilitate that reach.
Is education the primary focus of the event?
Our events have always focused on networking and education and this one is no different. We have robust networking options built into our online viewing platform; attendees will have the opportunity to interact with each other as well as with the speakers. Such contact is important, even in a virtual format.
Education is a huge priority for the MRC. We want to bring these valuable teachings to as many people as we can, and we want that access to education to expand beyond just the conferences. The event is free for MRC members, but to help bolster our education outreach, a free RAPID Edu e-learning course is included when non-MRC members pay the registration fee to attend.
We also recently launched our certification program, and we’re very excited about it. Our goal is to be the go-to place for payment industry education and delivering unique educational content at our conferences and events is an integral part of that strategy.
Talk a little about the selection process. How did you choose the presentations to reproduce for MRC Virtual?
It wasn’t easy! We’re proud of all our speakers and their sessions; the volume of remarkable presentations in both our Vegas and Berlin conferences was inspiring. It made the decision difficult, but I recognise that’s a good problem to have.
In the end, we decided on diversity of topics as the primary driver for our selection process. We wanted to touch on as many meaningful and different payment and fraud concepts as we could, so did our best to select presentations that properly exemplified that wide spectrum.
Can you tell us more about those topics? What are some of the underlying themes of the conference?
With this virtual conference, we wanted to showcase the wealth of expertise and informed perspectives that make up our membership and our industry. We’re proud of the final lineup and the multitude of topics represented.
On the payments side, there are several sessions focused on cryptocurrency, alternative payment methods, and BNPL, as well as payment cost analysis, international expansion strategies, and much more.
As always, we have a robust offering of fraud prevention content alongside our payment offerings, including new insights into bot mitigation, the ever-elusive balance of security versus the customer experience, ATO prevention, reputation management, and other insights from some of the brightest minds from the fraud mitigation and cybersecurity industry.
One goal we pushed for when designing the event agenda was ensuring there was something for everyone. We believe we were successful in achieving that.
Can you talk about the industries and verticals that will be represented?
Our audience, like our members, comes from a wide spectrum of verticals, and it’s important to us that people feel their industry is adequately represented at our events, whether in person or virtual.
We have retailers from the subscriptions space, travel, ticketing, software, gaming, as well as payment and fraud solution providers, payment card issuers, payment gateways, law enforcement agents, consultants, and many more. One of the strengths of the MRC community is the wealth of different perspectives, not only from different parts of the payments chain, but from different localities. Ours is a truly global membership, and we want our sessions and speakers to reflect that.
A variety of perspectives has always been a priority at our events, and this one is no different in that regard.
We hope you’ll join us on 12 July and add your opinion to the conversation!
About Úna Dillon
Úna is VP of Global Expansion and Merchant Advocacy at the MRC. Having worked in the payments industry for more than 25 years, she has chaired industry working groups at the European level, ran Laser Card (the Irish national debit card scheme) for 12 years, and was responsible for driving the development of policy on major initiatives such as SEPA. She was appointed to the European Commission Payment Systems Market Expert Group (PSMEG) to advise on regulatory policies on payments and payment fraud prevention. Here she brings the Voice of the Merchant to the European Payments Regulator’s table.
About the Merchant Risk Council
The MRC is a global community connecting ecommerce fraud prevention and payments professionals through educational programs, online community groups, conferences, and networking events. As a non-profit organisation, the MRC is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, but embraces members from across the globe.
