We interviewed Keith Briscoe, VP of Advocacy & Education at the MRC, about the upcoming MRC event in London, in April 2026. He tackled why attending is a must for professionals in the fraud and payments area, and what are the main topics and developments in these fields.
MRC London is right around the corner, running from 13 April to 15 April 2026. What are the main benefits of attending the conference for merchants and solution providers?
At the MRC, we always like to talk about our key pillars – the value promise we make to our membership: education, advocacy, and networking. There is tremendous disruption in the industry currently: the global shift to account-to-account payments (A2A) and Open Banking, increasing use of tokenization, the transformation of agentic commerce/ AI, and increasing regulatory oversight. Our content programme, education, and networking opportunities reflect these shifts and help the payments and fraud community better collaborate to solve for these emerging challenges.
Attendees will walk away better informed, better educated, and more equipped to solve for ‘what’s next’ by learning shoulder-to-shoulder with industry peers, mentors, and thought leaders. Collaboration is the cornerstone of our events, and this will be true once again in London, in April 2026.
AI, account takeover, payment innovations, and fraud prevention are among the key topics discussed during the MRC London 2026. What other hot topics will drive the conversation in panels and during networking breaks?
Those are broad topics areas, but within those we will also be featuring a lot of content on agentic commerce, payment optimisation, dispute resolution, authentication innovations, tokenization, the use of Machine Learning in fraud prevention, SCA, and VAMP (Visa Acquiring Monitoring Programme). We will also be taking merchants ‘behind the scenes at an issuer’, so they can better understand how the two can work together more collaboratively to drive increased approvals.
This year’s agenda is very balanced to ensure it meets the needs of both payments and fraud prevention professionals.
One of the most important parts of any MRC event is represented by the keynotes during the second and third day of the event. What can you tell us about this year’s London keynote speakers and what would be one point attendees should leave with after these discussions?
One of the things we are especially excited about this year is the strength of our keynote speakers.
On Tuesday, we are joined by Adolfo Laurenti, Principal Economist at Visa, who will explore how broader economic cycles directly influence fraud and risk. His session will help attendees understand how to read key economic indicators as early warning signals, so they can anticipate shifts in the risk landscape before they impact the business.
On Wednesday, we have Jim Browning, a globally recognised ethical hacker and YouTuber, known for exposing large-scale scam operations. Jim brings a unique, behind-the-scenes perspective on how fraudsters operate, scale, and adapt — something most organisations rarely get to see firsthand. His session will challenge attendees to think differently about attacker behaviour and the speed at which threats are evolving.
If there is one takeaway attendees should leave with, is that staying ahead of fraud, today, requires both a macro view of the forces shaping risk globally and a deep, practical understanding of how attackers actually operate. These keynotes bring both perspectives together in a way that is immediately actionable.
Each year, the MRC launches the Global Ecommerce Payments and Fraud Report, an industry must-read for any merchant. What insights and trends can we expect from this year’s edition?
There are two nuggets we can share in advance of our panel discussions about the findings. For the first time, real-time payments (RTP) cracked the top five of globally accepted payment methods. Given the laggard effect we have seen in North America relative to markets like Brazil, Europe, and India, this is encouraging news. Also, we were surprised to see that with new solutions coming out of the card networks to solve for first party misuse, this type of fraud is still very much on the rise globally. There are many reasons for this, all of which we will discuss in our panel session. There is a lot more in the report, too: we are going to focus on some of the significant headlines and really dig into the underlying trends to bring it to life on the stage —because there is always a story behind the data.
About the author:
Keith Briscoe is a 30-year payment, fintech, and fraud prevention veteran with functional expertise in product management, marketing, and corporate strategy. He currently co-leads the Merchant Risk Council’s advocacy and education efforts, working closely with MRC members, including the world’s top ecommerce merchant brands, card issuers, solution providers, advisory organisations, and card networks.
About the Merchant Risk Council (MRC):
The Merchant Risk Council (MRC) is a global non-profit membership organization connecting payments and fraud prevention professionals to share insights, strengthen risk strategies, and drive safer, more profitable eCommerce. With 780+ member companies and more than 12,500 professionals worldwide, MRC delivers industry-leading events, education, CPFPP certification, member-only networking, and advocacy that amplify real-world merchant and issuer perspectives while advancing best practices across the payments ecosystem. For more information visit MRC.
