What we spoke about at MPE Berlin
Our Group CEO Ugnė Buračienė joined the opening BIG TALK panel on agentic commerce and payments alongside leaders from Mastercard, Bank of America, EuroCommerce, and Uber. That conversation set the tone for everything that followed, exploring the rapid shifts in consumer behaviour and technology.
Our Chief Product Officer, Breno Oliveira, delivered a keynote on unified data for an agentic future. He also co-hosted a highly interactive, merchant-only workshop with EPI to look at how Wero operates, and what the 2026 roadmap means for businesses navigating cross-border growth.
Later on day two, Breno took the main stage for a panel exploring the potential of account-to-account (A2A) payments in Europe. Finally, Ugnė wrapped up our speaking slots on the new MPE NXT stage, sharing a personal look at how training for an Ironman 70.3 translates directly to high-performance leadership.
Across all our conversations in Berlin, one issue dominated: merchants are struggling with a heavily fragmented payment infrastructure. Managing acquiring, banking, payouts, and fraud monitoring through separate integrations drains internal resources and obscures where the money is actually going.
Key takeaways from MPE Berlin
The reality of fraud and AI
During the opening panel on future forces in merchant payments, our Group CEO Ugnė Buračienė addressed the growing complexity of international expansion. She pointed out that while AI improves transaction monitoring, it also hands bad actors incredibly sophisticated tools.
The research confirms it too: research from our Fraud in Europe report revealed that 85% of European businesses encountered fraud attempts, with 52% suffering reputational damage as a result.
And incredibly, dealing with these scams and disputes costs business leaders an average of 166 hours annually. Instead of leaving merchants to fight this alone, Ugne expanded on how payabl. delivers advanced fraud prevention that works directly into our platform to protect bottom line revenue.
Prepping for an agentic future
Our Chief Product Officer, Breno Oliveira, took the main stage to explain why the payments industry desperately needs a "USB-C moment". He detailed how legacy systems cannot support the shift toward agentic commerce, where autonomous AI agents research and execute purchases on our behalf.
To handle these automated, API-driven transactions, Breno spoke further about how payabl. is providing businesses with the right infrastructure to route transactions smartly and improve approval rates. See how payabl.'s checkout and gateway is helping merchants navigate this change.
Making A2A payments work
In both a dedicated workshop and a main stage panel, Breno broke down the reality of account-to-account (A2A) payments, and how they’re beneficial for merchants.
Breno emphasised that A2A solutions aren’t going to replace cards, but give merchants and consumers more choice. It was also revealed that the main hurdle for businesses is the operational headache of adding a new integration. For merchants, this remains a massive hurdle for adoption of new payment methods.
payabl. is helping merchants get ahead of the competition. As a principal member of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), payabl. is one of the first providers to directly integrate Wero, allowing merchants to adopt it seamlessly at checkout.
Discipline in business and sport
To wrap things up on a more personal note, Ugnė joined the MPE NXT stage to share lessons from training for Ironman 70.3 Hawaii. On stage, she highlighted the clear parallels between endurance sports and leading a fast-growing fintech company from the top.
To her, both require showing up consistently whilst tackling setbacks. But what matters most to leaders like Ugne and Breno is resilience, adapting to the situation, and trusting the process over time.
She also expands on how training for an event like this provides the mental space needed to reflect and reset when navigating demanding periods at work. For ugne, it serves as a reminder that both sport and business are team efforts built on shared goals.
Get the latest insights
At MPE Berlin 2026, we encountered merchants that are adapting to these new trends with payment strategies that align with emerging consumer demands.
With our latest How Europe likes to pay report, discover key strategies for payment method success, which payment methods work for your chosen territories, and how to choose the right payment methods for your business.