Dani Lugo
Head of U.S. Payments Strategy
Bank of America
Biography
Dani Lugo leads U.S. Payments Strategy within Global Payments Solutions at Bank of America. She defines the vision and go-to-market roadmap for the firm’s domestic payments ecosystem — spanning disbursements, settlement, liquidity, and digital connectivity — while driving growth in electronic payment adoption for corporate and institutional clients. Since joining in 2017, Dani has built her career at the intersection of payments modernization and client impact. She launched and scaled Recipient Select®, a digital disbursement platform that has meaningfully reduced check issuance and accelerated electronic payment adoption. Today, she focuses on shaping BofA’s modern payments strategy, connecting ACH and traditional rails with real-time, digital, and cross-border networks within strong regulatory and risk frameworks. Dani brings a global perspective to payments modernization and financial infrastructure. This stems from her Colombian heritage and her hands-on experience leading Supply Chain Finance programs across Latin America. She is passionate about expanding access to the more modern payment channels by advancing secure, reliable electronic payment capabilities that enable businesses and individuals, both domestically and globally, to participate fully in the digital economy. Her perspective on payments innovation that “innovation alone doesn’t create impact; adoption does” reflects both her product philosophy and her commitment to advancing the industry beyond her institutional role. Dani gives back to her community through volunteering with the Humane Society, Special Olympics, Bottomless Closet and NYC Parks. She is an active mentor to emerging payments professionals through formal and informal programs. Dani received her Bachelor and Master of Business Administration from Florida International University.
How is the nominee propelling the industry forward?
Dani’s work accelerates the industry-wide shift from paper to electronic payments — one of the most critical and persistent challenges facing the payments ecosystem. Her product strategy elevates security, speed, and choice across client disbursements. She launched Recipient Select®, a unified digital payout platform integrating account validation, fraud controls, and wallet connectivity, substantially increasing electronic adoption and reducing check related risk. She also expanded the bank’s digital wallet connectivity, including Venmo and Interac, strengthening interoperability and enhancing real time cross border settlement capabilities. Dani now leads strategy for 24/7 payment modernization, scaling real-time rails — including RTP, Request for Payment, Pay by Bank, and alias-based wallet payments — through enterprise use cases that drive adoption of faster, data-rich electronic payments. Dani is also evaluating stablecoin and blockchain-based settlement models within strong risk and compliance frameworks, positioning the ecosystem for real-time, cross-border efficiency. Her research-driven approach and ability to influence stakeholders internally and externally are helping drive a more interoperable, digital-first payments landscape. Dani extends her influence beyond the institution as an industry voice. In a 2025 PYMNTS feature, she introduced the “three Cs” framework — clarity, consistency, and confidence — as the foundation for moving payments from technical capability to mainstream behavior, arguing that “building the product isn’t the same as building the habit.” She also spoke as a panelist at the Women in Payments Canada Symposium, on “The Future of Payments: What’s ahead in 2030” alongside leaders from the Bank of Canada and major financial institutions, contributing to the international dialogue on open banking, agentic AI and the evolution of real-time payments infrastructure.
Where do you see the nominee succeeding in the future?
Dani is building toward a future where real-time, cross-border, and digital payment rails operate as seamless, interoperable infrastructure — and she has the rare combination of technical depth, global experience, and client-facing credibility to help lead that transformation. In the near term, she will drive enterprise-level adoption of 24/7 payment networks, moving RTP and Request for Payment from early-adopter use cases to mainstream commercial infrastructure. Her focus on behavioral adoption — making complex systems feel intuitive, embedded, and trustworthy — gives her a distinct edge in solving the industry’s hardest problem: not building what’s possible, but making what’s possible feel natural. Over the next decade, Dani will bring her passion for accessible payment channels to shape the evolution of cross-border and one-leg-out settlement models. In her vision, the payment platforms of the future will be faster, more transparent, and more inclusive than the correspondent banking infrastructure they replace. As tokenized and blockchain-based settlement frameworks mature, her experience bridging innovation with regulatory and risk governance will be critical to defining industry best practices. Most importantly, Dani is a builder of people as much as products. As she steps into broader leadership, she will help shape the next generation of payments leaders — diverse, globally minded, and committed to expanding financial access to businesses and individuals who have historically been underserved by legacy systems. Her voice, already reaching international audiences, will only grow more influential as the industry enters its most consequential phase of transformation.