My Favorite Sights and Sounds From This Week’s Convention
The Money 20/20 Europe convention will likely go down as one of the most high-profile events in the world for the FinTech industry, and I was honored to be a part of it.
As the conference was winding down, I took a few moments to reflect on what an incredible experience it had been.
Initial Impressions
This year’s inaugural event brought thousands of people from across Europe and abroad to Copenhagen for four days of collaborative discussion on the future of the payments industry.
The convention was a great opportunity to meet and connect with other figures from around the industry. A lot of my fellow attendees were prominent payments and FinTech personalities, C-level executives and high-profile industry influencers. I was able to speak with some really great people right from the get-go.
The whole convention was just a great environment. There was live music, dancing, awesome food and drinks. There were even candy and treats available to help keep us energized!
Even though it was a huge space with thousands of people, being able to meet so many of them on a person-to-person level made the event feel very comfortable.
Influencing the Industry
Money 20/20 Europe featured plenty of great speakers. I heard keynote addresses from such figures as Western Union CEO, Hikmet Ersek, as well as Rupert Keeley, the CEO of PayPal Europe. The keynote addresses were really engaging. They spoke to the current state of the FinTech industry and all of the exciting changes we’re going to see in the next few years.
Some of the other high-profile speakers at the event included Alipay International President Sabrina Peng, Commerzbank CEO Martin Blessing, ING Group CEO Ralph Hamers, Visa Europe CEO Nicholas Huss and Sequoia Capital Chairman Michael Moritz.
I had the great privilege of participating in a panel presentation Tuesday morning called Innovations in Card-Not-Present Fraud. My fellow panelists included:
- Andrew Jamieson, Head of Innovations, UL (moderator)
- Susanne Bronnum, Country Manager for Denmark, Nets
- Catherine Moore, President, JP Morgan Commerce Solutions
- Nicholas Raffin, Head of Strategic Marketing, Oberthur Technologies
We covered a number of topics during our 45-minute panel discussion, including the impact of omni-channel shopping, new payment methods, and the EMV liability shift in the US.
I wanted to impress upon the audience the importance of the industry coming to terms with the reality of ecommerce fraud. We’ve got to get everyone on the same page when it comes to these three basic facts:
- Chargebacks are the fastest-growing threat to online merchants.
- There are only three sources of chargebacks (merchant error, criminal fraud and friendly fraud).
- Most chargebacks result from friendly fraud.
Overall, I absolutely loved Money 20/20 Europe. It felt like one of the best organized, friendliest and most welcoming industry conventions I’ve attended. I can’t wait until next year!
