7 key takeaways from Money 20/20

A couple of years ago, an over-reaching trade journalist dubbed Money 20/20 “the Woodstock of Payments.”

This set my mind racing to devise an alternate catchphrase: The Coachella of Cards? The Fantasia of FinTech? The Burning Man of Blockchain?

Clever taglines notwithstanding, good things happen whenever you bring 11,000 of the leading practitioners of a field together, whether on stage or in hallway conversations.

Now five years old, the annual Money 20/20 conference has become a natural venue for major product announcements and provocative panel discussions with the payment industry’s leading lights.

Part of the event’s secret sauce derives from maintaining a healthy mix of venture capitalists, fintech companies, and corporate players among the usual financial institution/vendor crowd, which provides a welcome divergence of perspectives.

I was disappointed to find credit unions underrepresented given the strategic importance of payments to both member relationships and the credit union financial statement.

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