Money20/20 US big takeaways
It was great to be back on the conference trail last week, with Money20/20 US providing a chance to finally meet in person again many industry friends, clients and new potential partners.
The main themes were a little different to its counterpart event in Europe and those exhibiting tell a story of where the industry is going.
- Crypto, crypto, crypto. This was the biggest growth areas with more stands and more conversations than any other industry segment. Plenty of focus was on the infrastructure driving adoption across a range of consumer and business platforms.
- If you peel away a few layers of the onion, it is amazing how many players are all powering one another or some part of a pay-in/pay-out network with a constant mix of face-value competitors both partnering and competing simultaneously. How many players really have all the direct connections and networks remains to be seen and may become a measure of their underlying value.
- Identity (or regtech) remains a big area of focus, and crypto has helped give a boost to the segment.
- Open Banking, though less formal in the US, has been gaining solid traction via players such as Plaid and Trustly, allowing companies to now build products on top of these platforms.
In the cross-border space specifically, there were few big announcements. dLocal launched its fraud management service; Thunes announced its tie-up with Xoom and Flutterwave is broadening its Europe to Africa money transfer offering by extending its partnership with Stellar and Tempo using USDC.
And my favourite line from show shared late on by an overtired industry friend – “We’re just all a little out of conference shape.” Let’s hope 2022 allows many of us to safely get back to meeting in person again.
Stay ahead of the sector – sign up to our newsletter
