SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Ecommpay has been shortlisted in seven categories at the Payments Awards, including two individual Women in PayTech honours.

Its Head of Regulatory Compliance, Alpa Jotangia, and Chief Marketing Officer, Miranda McLean, are finalists for the Women in PayTech award. Ecommpay is also in contention for Best Online Payments Solution, Best Merchant Acquirer or Processor, Cross-Border Payments Solution of the Year, AI-Driven Fraud Prevention Platform of the Year, and Best Use of AI and Data in Payments.

The shortlist spans both corporate and individual categories in an awards programme that recognises businesses and executives across the payments sector.

Ecommpay operates a full-stack payments platform for merchants, with cross-border commerce at the centre of its offer. Merchants can access global and local acquiring, payment processing, and orchestration through a single API, alongside more than 100 payment methods.

Fraud prevention was one of the areas highlighted by the shortlist. Ecommpay cited its in-house Graph Analysis system as part of its response to payment fraud, a growing issue in digital commerce.

The individual nominations reflect different parts of the business. Jotangia was recognised for her work in regulatory compliance and for building a compliance culture within organisations.

McLean’s nomination centres on her marketing career and her work on inclusion, accessibility, and diversity in financial technology. Financial inclusivity sits at the heart of Ecommpay’s wider mission and shapes how it supports merchants seeking to improve accessibility for end customers.

AI focus

Artificial intelligence features prominently in the company’s awards showing. Alongside the AI-Driven Fraud Prevention Platform of the Year category, Ecommpay was shortlisted for Best Use of AI and Data in Payments, reflecting its use of machine learning and data analysis in payment processing.

Ecommpay has invested in artificial intelligence to analyse payment declines and fraud patterns. That work forms part of a broader push to improve checkout performance and payment acceptance rates for merchants.

McLean commented on the recognition in a statement.

“At Ecommpay, we are on a mission to push checkout performance to its absolute limit. As well as committing to increasing accessibility and inclusivity across our platform, adding to our suite of available payment methods and using the latest tech to fight fraud, we have invested in artificial intelligence to analyse payment declines and transform FinTech performance. To have our people, our innovations and our successes recognised with no less than seven Payments Awards shortlistings is incredible,” said Miranda McLean, Chief Marketing Officer, Ecommpay.

Company profile

Founded in 2012 and based in London, Ecommpay serves merchants looking to manage domestic and international payments through a single provider. Its platform includes open banking, recurring billing, and direct debits, which it builds directly into its system rather than relying on third-party products.

The business is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations to provide payment services. It is also a principal member of Mastercard and Visa, according to the company.

The seven shortlistings give Ecommpay visibility across some of the most competitive parts of the payments market, including online payments, merchant acquiring, cross-border transactions, fraud prevention, and the use of artificial intelligence in payment operations.

These categories highlight where payments groups are under pressure to differentiate, particularly as merchants seek fewer providers, broader geographic reach, and stronger fraud controls.

Ecommpay said ultimate financial inclusivity is its company mission, with a focus on helping merchants improve accessibility for customers.

Leonie Dubois, Head of Engagement, Land and Consents at Thames Water, said: “The South East is designated as seriously water stressed and as we enter the fourth heatwave of the summer it’s clear climate change is already having an impact.

“It’s therefore critical that we continue to progress our plans for White Horse Reservoir.

“It would act as drought insurance policy for the region, securing water supplies for 15 million people, including Thames Water, Affinity Water and Southern Water customers.”

The White Horse Reservoir, near Abingdon, will provide water for 15 million people across the south east.

The project has been labelled a “vital piece of national water infrastructure” by Thames Water.

But, in a statement action group ‘Group Against Reservoir Development’ called the reservoir the wrong solution in the wrong place.

The massive reservoir, which will cover an area the size of Gatwick Airport, has always been a topic of debate.

Only Kielder Water in Northumberland, at 200 billion litres, is bigger.

READ MORE: Rain to reverse Oxfordshire drought won’t arrive till October

Map of Abingdon reservoir location. (Image: Google Maps)

Two groups, Countryside charity CPRE Oxfordshire and Safer Waters, even sought a judicial review at the High Court.

However, their judicial review was dismissed.

 Thames Water revealed that costs for the controversial proposed Abingdon Reservoir soared from £2.2 billion to between £5.5 billion and £7.5 billion, a tripling of the original figure

This will be borne by customers of Thames Water, Affinity Water, and Southern Water.

The plan is to tackle an anticipated shortfall of more than a billion litres of water per day in the next 50 years, according to Thames Water.

This projection considers the effects of population growth and climate change.

Thames Water predicts that a severe drought could cost London’s economy alone as much as £500m a day.

Currently, hosepipe bans are already a common occurrence.

The Abingdon Reservoir, also known as the South East Strategic Reservoir Option (SESRO), is expected to be the second largest reservoir in the UK, with a capacity of 150 billion litres.

Only Kielder Water in Northumberland, at 200 billion litres, is bigger.

The site is located three miles southwest of Abingdon.

It is close to the River Thames and features the right geology and ground conditions for a reservoir.

Thames Water has had to plan for more than just the reservoir itself.

The project will include a pumping station, a conveyance tunnel to transfer flows to and from the River Thames near Culham, and infrastructure to link the reservoir to the River Thames for emergency drawdown.

An access road into the site, a temporary rail siding for freight train deliveries, and a compensatory floodplain are also part of the plan.

Local streams will be diverted, and the Steventon–Hanney road will be shifted to the south.

Cambridge Tech Week has named five startups as finalists in its 2026 pitching competition after judges selected them from a shortlist of 20 companies.

The finalists are HotHouse Therapeutics, HutanBio, Lambda Energy, Myonerv and Xplore Intelligence. They span biotechnology, sustainable energy, agritech, medtech and artificial intelligence, reflecting the breadth of the wider shortlist.

HotHouse Therapeutics emerged from Professor Anne Osbourn’s laboratory at the John Innes Centre. The company is developing a drug discovery approach based on transient plant expression, using living plants to produce new medicines through an artificial intelligence-led platform.

HutanBio is focused on algae-based fuel production. It has identified a new class of algae, called Sphaerica, that produces oil at much higher rates than existing leading strains and can be cultivated in seawater on non-agricultural coastal land using sunlight and CO2.

Lambda Energy operates in agritech with a greenhouse additive called GloGro. The product is designed to increase crop yields by about 20%, and the company has secured pilot manufacturing and grower trials for high-value crops in the UK.

Myonerv has developed a wearable neurostimulator designed to monitor and treat stroke-induced paralysis remotely. Its system uses reusable electrode arrays and has already demonstrated remote control of hand movement between Cambridge and Greece.

Edinburgh-based Xplore Intelligence is building software to train and evaluate AI agents. Its Forge platform is designed to simulate operational environments so businesses can test full AI agent systems before deployment. The company has also won its first contract, worth more than GBP £1 million.

Judging panels

An independent panel drawn from finance, venture capital and industry reviewed the initial shortlist. It included Paul Hughes, Managing Director – Life Sciences & Technology, BDO; Jamie Bignal, Director, HSBC Innovation Banking; Mayank Shah, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Grow Beyond Borders; Anne Dobree, Investment Director, Parkwalk Advisors; Isabelle O’Keeffe, Venture Partner, Twin Path Ventures; and the Chief Technology Officer for His Majesty’s Government Communications Centre, whose identity was withheld for security reasons.

A separate panel will choose the overall winner in the live final. It includes Zickie Lim, Partner and Head of VC & Investments, Mills & Reeve; Marilena Ioannidou, Director, Metaxi Catalyst Ventures; Richard Lewis, Managing Director, Foresight Group; and Emmi Nicholl, Chief Executive Officer, Cambridge Angels.

The competition forms part of Startup to Scaleup Day, one of the business-focused strands of Cambridge Tech Week. Organisers have positioned it as a showcase for younger technology businesses seeking investor, customer and market attention as they move beyond the early stage.

The finalists also highlight where UK startup activity remains concentrated. Drug development, climate and energy technologies, digital health, food production and AI infrastructure continue to attract commercial and investor interest, particularly when linked to research institutions or clear industrial use cases.

Cambridge has long been one of the UK’s leading centres for venture-backed science and technology businesses, with strong links between academia, investors and corporate partners. The inclusion of companies from outside the city, including Xplore Intelligence, suggests the competition is intended to reflect a broader national technology base rather than the local cluster alone.

The pitching competition is sponsored by Mills & Reeve, PwC and Julius & Clark. Professional services and law firms have become regular backers of startup competitions as they seek closer ties with high-growth businesses and their investors.

Lead judge Zickie Lim commented on the selection process.

“The standard of this year’s competition has been exceptionally high from the start, which will make the final selection process incredibly challenging. As sponsors of the Pitching Competition, Mills & Reeve is delighted to support a platform that shines a spotlight on the next generation of innovative businesses, and we are looking forward very much to seeing the finalists pitch live at Cambridge Tech Week,” Lim said.

PwC also highlighted the strength of the field.

“This year’s finalists demonstrate the extraordinary depth of innovation emerging from the UK’s technology ecosystem, and are among the strongest we’ve seen. They all represent the kind of ambitious, globally relevant businesses that have the potential to create real impact. PwC is proud to support entrepreneurs at this critical stage of their growth journey,” de Young said.