Money20/20 2016: A Summary

Key takeaways from Financial Tech’s largest annual convention.

Money20/20 Las Vegas has become a central event for the payments industry, where industry-changing announcements are made every year,
and the “movers and shakers” collaborate on the future of payment technology.

Please find some of the highlights below.

A new money transfer app called Zelle was announced. It competes with Venmo and is backed by Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America.

Ex-Apple CEO, John Sculley warned financial institutions that take a passive approach to fintech. He brought Kodak as an example of a large business that dominated the photography industry for years until the advent of digital cameras, which made their product irrelevant.  The takeaway: financial institutions must stay on the pulse of innovation and a way to operate quickly and digitally if they want to remain in business. 

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square and Twitter, had negative things to say about the EMV transition. “People aren’t happy. It’s really, really, really slow.” Speed has become the number one factor in customer satisfaction. Payment has to be secure, and they have to be fast. 

Erica, a chatbot created by Bank of America, will change how customers interact with their bank. Using Artificial Intelligence and cognitive messaging, it scans the user’s financial state and offers opportunities for consolidation and savings.

The event hosted its annual “Hackathon”, the winners of which created an AI assistant for merchants called “Clever”. It can review massive amounts of customer data and provide a simplified analysis to merchants.

In discussion was the future of payment technology. Specifically:

• How smaller companies, versus larger institutions, are the future of FinTech
• Blockchain has been embraced by forward-thinking bankers, but most don’t know very much about it and are taking a wait-and-see approach.
• The transition to EMV, NFC, and mobile banking

What you need to know:

In conclusion, consumers are moving to a digitized space for commerce. It is essential that merchants are aware of and accommodating the newest payment technologies. Cardknox is a leading expert in payment technologies and integrations. We develop our own technology to integrate POS systems with the latest in speed, security and equipment.

Contact Cardknox today to see what we can do to meet your merchants’ payment needs.