Tearsheet’s 2022 guide to Money 20/20

Money is changing — not just in the ways it is spent or appears, but in its nature, behavior, and how people interact with it. Money 20/20 is an annual deep dive into this evolution, and in some ways, a celebration of it. And it's just around the corner.

The conference – scheduled to be held in Las Vegas from October 23rd to 26th – provides financial services and fintech professionals with a platform to discuss the contemporary money ecosystem, with in-depth analysis, expert sessions, and space to network.

**To that end, whether you’re headed out to Vegas or not, we've got you covered regarding what’s happening at Money 20/20. We’ll be there and we’re launching a pop-up newsletter to cover the important announcements, trends, and overall atmosphere of the event. Subscribe here.

With just a few days left before the conference, here are the exciting things on the agenda that we would keep an eye out for.

Embedded finance

Embedded finance continues growing in popularity. The concept involves embedding banking features into existing products and services, in order to meet the customer's financial needs at the point of sale. Companies across many industries are exploring the uses of embedded banking services in their product ecosystem in a way that adds value for their customers.

Here are this year's key sessions on this topic: 

An Embedded Revolution: How Platforms And Marketplaces Will Reimagine Financial Services

• When: 5:19 PM – 5:54 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Kamran Zaki, COO at Ayden; Julie Loeger, Chief Growth Officer at eBay; Dave Salvant, co-founder and president of Squire; moderated by Scarlett Sieber, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer at Money20/20

Embedded finance is revolutionizing fintech as we know it. The trope of "software eating the world" is quickly turning to "fintech eating the world," and embedded finance has been the driver. Executives from Adyen, eBay, and Squire will discuss how platforms and marketplaces will lead this revolution. Plus, Adyen will share a large announcement with the potential to change the landscape of the financial ecosystem.

Can Embedded Fintech & Payments Help Businesses Scale and Expand Globally?

• When: 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM on Monday, October 24, 2022
• Who: Antonia Marino, Co-Founder & COO, Kontempo; Debbie Watkins, CEO & Co-Founder, Lucy; Robyn Walker, Head of Operations, Kadmos; moderated by Joel Yarbrough, VP, Rapyd

If your organization – regardless of size – has questions about what the market opportunity for embedded fintech and payments looks like, this session is for you. Discover how to keep up with the changing environment and how to capitalize on global growth opportunities in an unsteady market. Learn from the strategies, trials and tribulations of fintech founders who are expanding their cross-border businesses throughout Asia Pacific, Latin America and Europe.

Cloud banking

As banks move ahead with their digital transformation plans, cloud computing could help them create personalized digital solutions at a faster pace. But there are still some obstacles when it comes to banks adopting the cloud – ranging from figuring out what the actual benefits are to understanding the integration process.

This year’s Money 20/20 has a couple of sessions exploring this topic:

Banking on the Cloud: From Neobanks to Big Banks

• When: 11:50 AM – 12:30 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Seke Ballard, CEO & Founder, BetaBank; Laura Merling, Chief Transformation & Operations Officer, Arvest Bank; Reetika Grewal, Head of Digital, Commercial Banking, Corporate & Investment Banking, Wells Fargo; Yolande Piazza, Vice President, Financial Service, Google Cloud

Customers expect more from their banks. Whether it’s bias-free lending, mobile self-service options, or AI-based advice, customers want better banking experiences. Neobanks, regional banks, and big banks are building that vision with cloud technology.

The Cloud Changed Everything – But What Now?

• When: 12:15 PM – 12:35 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Ricardo Josua, Founder & CEO, Pismo

As the industry has digitized and adopted the cloud, the utility of it is still not fully realized. In this presentation, Ricardo Josua is going to walk through the impact of the cloud on the financial sector, and what needs to happen next to keep up its transformational pace and revolutionize the way people bank.

Web3

Web3 has the potential to unlock new products and enhance customer experiences for financial institutions. Since the technology is still in its infancy, industry leaders are exploring profitable use cases and awaiting regulation to pull the trigger. Despite the growing pains, a lot of progress has been made in the past few years. And Money 20/20 has coined the term 'Web2.5' to describe “the potential for a middle ground between Web2 and Web3.”

This year’s event includes some eye-opening sessions on the topic:

Epiphanies & Pitfalls: Money Moving From Web2 To Web3

• When: 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Ben Milne, CEO, Brale

As the internet moves from closed to open financial ecosystems, the transitions aren't always clear, but they're more obvious than you think. Ben Milne has spent over a decade in Web2 payments as the CEO of Dwolla, and he's applying that knowledge to build on and off ramps into and out of Web3. Learn from his experience diving down the Web3 rabbit hole. The ups, the downs, the gas fee fiascos.

Token-Gated Commerce Is What's Next For Brand Loyalty

• When: 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: John S. Lee, Head of Blockchain Ecosystem, Shopify; Sanjib Kalita, Editor in Chief, Money 20/20

Seamless experiences with NFTs and Web3 will revolutionize how brands associate and connect with consumers. One could even say some of these brands will become communities. How can blockchain developers, fintechs and creators develop compelling capabilities that buyers will care about? Learn what token gated commerce is, why it matters now, and how Web3 and NFTs can unlock a new world of creative power and problem solving.

The future of marketing

As competition continues to reach new heights among fintechs and incumbents alike, marketing is taking on a new level of importance for all firms across the sector. From investing in martech to diving headfirst into new channels, companies are going all out to make sure they're first in potential customers' line of vision.

Many of the sessions at this year's Money 20/20 focus on how to get the most out of age-old and new-age marketing strategies.

How Financial Service Brands Win with Marketing

• When: 9:30 AM – 10:00 AM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Carolyn Murphy, VP, North America at WARC and Cheryl Guerin, EVP, Global Brand Strategy & Innovation at Mastercard

Hear from WARC, the global authority on marketing effectiveness, and Mastercard, who WARC recently named as the most effective financial services advertiser in the annual WARC Rankings, on the answers to these questions and more.

Leveraging AI in Digital-First Marketing

• When: 10:00 AM – 10:40 AM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Mark Ryan, Chief Data Strategist at Finalytics.ai and Chantal Rapport, Chief Marketing Officer at Upstart

The unique insights and invaluable customer learnings that finserv companies have to gain from leveraging AI and leading with a technology and data-first mindset will produce financial and relational returns that previously seemed impossible.

It’s Time to Turn Your Customers into Shareholders

• When: 11:10 AM – 11:50 AM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Nick Craven, SVP Commercial & Consumer Banking at TAB Bank, Paolina Medina, Assistant Professor of Finance at Texas A&M University, and Jordi Prats, VP, Rewards Portfolio Strategy at Maritz Motivation

Did you know that globally, there are $48 trillion worth of unspent loyalty points? And $140 billion of those are just in the U.S. alone. When it comes to today’s customers, they are seeking more from their loyalty program beyond points or air miles that typically go to waste. And it's up to us – brands, banks and fintechs – to reward them in a currency that matters to them, and does good for our businesses.

In this session, you’ll hear from the companies that are leading the future of customer loyalty, how they are incorporating innovative reward currencies such as stock, and how they are collaborating with fintechs to make it happen.

Banking in the Metaverse

With the Metaverse frequently making the rounds in the news, it's time to investigate the potential that this ‘new era’ holds for payments, digital identity, and everything in between. Finding the answers to complex questions about data ownership and the manifestation of digital rights in a virtual realm will be key to understanding what this new chapter brings.

This year's conference has quite a few sessions addressing this question and a lot more about the metaverse.

Megabucks from the Metaverse: How the Metaverse Can Deliver Real Value

• When: 10:20 AM – 10:45 AM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Roberto Hernandez, Partner – Global Metaverse Leader, PwC; Brandon Johnson, Chief Experience Officer, TerraZero Technologies, Inc.

Two-thirds of executives in PwC’s 2022 Metaverse Survey are actively engaged with a metaverse strategy, and 82 percent expect it to be business as usual within three years. Join this session to uncover how banks and payment providers can use the metaverse today to engage with Gen Z and Gen Alpha customers in a meaningful way, transform customer experiences, and obtain a return out of different metaverse activations.

Metaverse – What it Means for Money & the Keepers of Identity

• When: 11:15 AM – 11:45 AM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Steve Pannifer, Managing Director, Consult Hyperion; Sophia Bantanidis, Future of Finance, Citi Global Insights, Citi

The Metaverse won't be just a digital destination – it will be digital personhood. The nature of ownership will be largely dependent on data ownership and digital identity. What will that mean for finance in the metaverse? There is a gold rush, but is it for those chasing their own digital space, or those providing access to it? To delve into these questions, we brought together two experts who can challenge the others' ideas, even while sharing a vision of a bright future. 

Money in the Metaverse

• When: 4:43 PM – 5:03 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Stephane Kasriel, Head of Commerce & Fintech, Meta; Sanjib Kalita, Editor in Chief, Money 20/20

The way people interact, transact, and make a living are all on the precipice of a dramatic shift if the metaverse thesis is correct. Meta’s Stephane Kasriel is joining Sunday Night Live to discuss the mass potential of financial services in the metaverse and the aim to build a user-friendly bridge of centralization and decentralization in an entirely new world.

Fraud prevention

Today, digital fraud is a multi-billion-dollar problem, and legacy solutions are struggling to keep pace with the scale, speed, and extent of modern, bot-powered attacks. Fraudsters' approaches are becoming more sophisticated as they continue to deploy more advanced techniques. Fraud attacks on financial institutions are not new – what’s shifting the attention now is the rise in their frequency and intensity. This means that tackling sophisticated scams now requires adopting sophisticated solutions.

This year's Money 20/20 will address some of the key issues surrounding this topic:

Combating Online Fraud: Tailoring Authentication to Consumer Preferences

• When: 1:45 PM – 2:00 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: David Mattei, Strategic Advisor at Aite-Novarica Group

We live in a digital world, but unfortunately, fraudsters do too. A challenge for financial services firms, e-commerce merchants, and others is accurately authenticating a user with as little friction as possible. Based on a recent global survey, Aite-Novarica Group will present its findings on consumer attitudes and preferences on various forms of authentication and how they differ between financial services and e-commerce firms. Armed with this information, companies can better structure their fraud control frameworks to protect themselves and their customers.

Fraud Prevention: From Cost Center To Competitive Advantage

• When: 1:45 PM – 2:30 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022 
• Who: Jack Alton, CEO at NeuroID; Luke Voiles, GM, Square Banking at Square; Neepa Patel, Founder & CEO at Themis; moderated by Jai Ramaswamy, Chief Legal Officer at Andreessen Horowitz

Fraud prevention has long been thought of as a cost center for the compliance department. Only recently has the technology taken a turn from cost center to value add by increasing throughput, decreasing false positives, and providing new kinds of data to decision-makers when they need it.

Synthetic ID – the $20 Billion Elephant in the Room

• When: 2:35 PM – 2:55 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Albert Roux, VP, Product Management for Fraud at Onfido

Synthetic ID fraud is the Trojan horse of fraud, costing banks $20 billion in 2020. It’s developed to circumvent KYC checks by creating fictitious identities that only exist within the credit bureau databases designed to protect financial businesses. How do we stop it? AI, biometrics? Join this session to find out!

Banking the cannabis industry

In the short period that it's existed, the cannabis industry has become the fastest-growing in the US – amounting to $25 billion worth of sales in 2022. Any industry of this size needs financial services, but because of federal legislation, the cannabis industry is not only unserved by the big credit card networks – Visa, Mastercard and Amex – but also by most FIs. In this environment, a range of unique startups and ideas are banking cannabis brands, manufacturers, and distributors, making the space among the most exciting in fintech.

This year, Money 20/20’s got an eye on the space, with a number of sessions dedicated to banking the cannabis industry.

Cannabis Banking from the Front Lines: How it Started, How it’s Going and Where it’s Headed

• When: 2:10 PM – 2:30 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Tyler Beuerlein, Chief Strategic Business Development Officer, Safe Harbor Financial

Cannabis is not unbanked – but it is underbanked. For years, the SAFE Banking Act has stalled in the Senate, despite the growing needs of the industry and communities. Interest in it has renewed, but people in the industry are at odds whether the legislation under consideration has the right measures. Tyler Beuerlein, a cannabis payments industry veteran and Chairman Emeritus, NCIA Banking and Financial Services Committee, is going to take us through the financial services journey of legalized cannabis, and walk us through the fine print of the SAFE Banking Act.

Bringing the Banking to Cannabis Banking

• When: 2:35 PM – 2:55 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Erin O’Donnell, Founding Partner at Infused Banking; Michael Beird, Founding Partner at Infused Banking

In a few short years, the cannabis market has emerged as one of the fastest growing industries on the planet, bringing billions of dollars to participating states throughout the US. Yet, less than 300 financial institutions are actively banking it. Payments are still cash-heavy, lending to security issues. And the mere mention of working in legal cannabis can endanger the small businesses and workforce of financial services. Banking needs to turn unintended consequences into lessons learned.

The Truth Behind Cannabis Payments

• When: 3:00 PM – 3:20 PM on Sunday, October 23, 2022
• Who: Jessica Billingsley, CEO at Akerna Corp.

Cannabis is a $30 billion industry, too often forced to operate in cash, or find workarounds due to compliance issues with using traditional payment rails. This frank talk with Jessica Billingsley, CEO of Akerna, aims to explore the ins and outs of payments for cannabis, and ways to open those rails to everyone's benefit.