The Payments Association announces the 2020 Payments Associationward winners at first virtual ceremony

Global Processing Services sweeps the board with five awards including Industry Contributor of the Year for Neil HarrisLondon, United Kingdom. 27^th November 2020: The The Payments Association, which promotes collaboration and innovation across payments, announced the winners of the 13^th annual Payments Association Awards yesterday, at its first fully virtual ceremony. Fintech has been the UK’s top performing sector in tech for several years, which contributes more than £130bn to the economy annually. In such a burgeoning industry, the Payments Associationwards attracted some of the most influential fintech companies at this year’s ceremony. Among the winners were Global Processing Services (GPS) that picked up 5 awards, including the Industry Contributor of the Year award for Neil Harris, Group Chief Commercial Officer at GPS. Airtel Uganda and Comviva picked up three awards, including Best financial inclusion, merchant services and mobile or financial services payments awards. With a 50% increase in entries from 2019, it was the most competitive year for the esteemed judging panel who reviewed hundreds of submissions from across the world to select its final winners of the 20 awards.  Tony Craddock, Director General of the The Payments Association, said: “I am always truly astounded by the innovation, creativity and passion of our UK FinTech and payments sector. All of our winners are truly deserving of their accolades and it’s inspiring to see the quality of entries grow on a yearly basis.” The judges praised this year’s winners as demonstrating high-quality and innovative payment solutions that benefit the industry as a whole. The full list of winners for 2020 is as follows:

• Best International Payments, Remittance or use of FX: Ebury – Faster and Smarter Global Payments
• Best Financial Inclusion Payments Programme: Airtel Money Uganda by Airtel Uganda and Comviva, Easypaisa by Telenor Microfinance Bank
• Best B2C Payments Programme: Stocard
• Best B2B Payments Programme: Bottomline – Bottomline PTX
• Best Banking or Open Banking Initiative: Currensea & Global Processing Services (GPS)
• Best Partnership Initiative: Lloyds Bank – I-safe
• Best Use of Payments Data or AI in Financial Services: Visa Europe – Visa Advanced Authorisation
• Most Innovative Mobile or Financial Services Payments Solution: Airtel Money Uganda by Airtel Uganda and Comviva
• Most Innovative Merchant Services Solution: Airtel Money Uganda by Airtel Uganda and Comviva
• Best Back Office Innovation: Mastercard – Threat Scan by Mastercard
• Best Customer Facing Experience: FIS – Premium Payback
• Marketing Campaign of the Year: Fame & Fortune in Fintech: Launching Tribe Payments by CCgroup
• Leading Financial Services or Payments Start-Up: Currensea & Global Processing Services (GPS)
• Leading Payments Association Organisation: Global Processing Services (GPS) – The Super Processor™
• Best Use of Blockchain in Financial Services: Nuggets
• Best Direct Account to Account Solution: mobiquity® Money – COVID-19 Response by Comviva
• Best Lending Initiative: Starling Bank
• Best CSR or Charity Initiative: allpay – Herefordshire Flooding – Prepaid Programme
• Best Market Expansion: Global Processing Services (GPS) Launch of APAC Hub in Singapore
• The Industry Contributor of the Year - Neil Harris, Group Chief Commercial Officer at @Global Processing Payments

  The Payments Association Awards celebrate innovation, collaboration and emerging payments by recognising companies that have made significant advances in how we pay today. The winners were announced at the Payments Association’s first fully virtual ceremony, attended by the industry’s most senior opinion-formers and decision-makers. This year’s presenter was Sara Pascoe and there were some special messages recorded in by some very familiar names including, singer Gloria Gaynor and actors David Hasselhoff, Elijah Wood and Charlie Sheen. To find out more about the Payments Associationwards, please visit: www.emergingpaymentsawards.comTo donate to the Payments Association’s chosen charity for 2020, Mind, please visit: https://shop.forgoodcauses.org/products/mind-epa-award-donation-1?utm_source=general-donation&utm_medium=QR+Codes&utm_campaign=mind-donation&utm_content=&utm_term=For more information on the work and services of the Payments Association you can visit: www.emergingpayments.org you can speak directly to the Payments Association at: info@emergingpayments.org ### 

About the Payments Association

The Payments Association, established in 2008, sets out to make payments work for everyone. To achieve this, it runs a comprehensive programme of activities for members with guidance from an independent Advisory Board of 15 payments CEOs. These activities include a programme of digital and (when possible) face-to-face events including an online annual conference and broadcast awards dinner, numerous briefings and webinars, CEO Round Tables, and networking and training activities. The Payments Association also runs six stakeholder working groups. More than 100 volunteers collaborate on the important challenges facing our industry today, such as financial inclusion, recovering from Covid-19, financial crime, regulation, access to banking and promoting the UK globally. The Payments Association also produces research papers and reports to shed light on the big issues of the day and works closely with industry stakeholders such as the Bank of England, the FCA, HM Treasury, the Payment Systems Regulator, Pay.UK, UK Finance and Innovate Finance. The Payments Association has over 130 members that employ over 300,000 staff and process more than £7tn annually. Its members come from across the payments value chain including payments schemes, banks and issuers, merchant acquirers, PSPs, retailers, TPPs and more. These companies have come together to join our community, collaborate, and speak with a unified voice. The Payments Association collaborates with its licensees at Payments Association EU and Payments Association Asia to create an interconnected global network of people passionate about making payments work for all. 

Media contact

Scott Girling-Heathcote Senior Account Manager at SkyParlourepa@skyparlour.com+44 (0)330 043 1315  #ENDS#