Fintech Meetup: a tour de force

Fintech Meetup organizers welcomed more than 3,000 banking, payments and fintech professionals to the Las Vegas Aria Resort and Casino on March 19, 2023, for three days of presentations, demos, table talks and one-on-one meetings. This followed two years of hosting virtual meetings.

In opening comments, Simran Rekhi Aggarwal, founder of Fintech Meetup, said, "We can't wait to see all the amazing opportunities that are created as a result of the 30,000-plus meetings we're facilitating for you over the coming days."

Aggarwal further noted that Fintech Meetup is designed to foster collaboration. Like the tech-driven industry it serves, she added, the platform continues to evolve, with a Hub and Spoke feature planned for 2024 to support co-located events, meetups and activities.

"Hub and Spoke will allow Fintech Meetup to facilitate true collaboration across the industry," she said. "We'll also update our algorithms to ensure you experience the best of what the industry has to offer."

Jon Lear, president and co-founder of Fintech Meetup, stated that fintech has scaled over the past decade, bringing new categories of services and solutions to the ecosystem. "The majority of Americans now view fintech as the new normal," he said. "Open banking and APIs have made our industry more interconnected than ever before. Banking is getting unbundled with embedded finance and Banking as a Service solutions."

Lear went on to say that the fintech industry is assessing the impact of recent bank failures on the economy and industry, but despite these issues and the seriousness of current economic challenges, the outlook for fintech remains bright.

Tech-driven experience

Lear noted that Fintech Meetup's proprietary technology connects professionals and enterprises and has arranged tens of thousands of meetings since its 2021 launch, attracting participants from across the commerce value chain, including the following sectors:

• Consumer banking, personal finance

• Consumer payments

• Banking-as-a-service, embedded finance

• Platforms, infrastructure, APIs

• Blockchain, cryptocurrencies

• Lending, credit

• B2B payments, finance

• Open finance

• Risk, security, identity

• Regulation, compliance

Near-term challenges, opportunities

After facilitating rapid-fire meetups on Zoom in 2021 and 2022, Fintech Meetup unveiled a sea of numbered café tables in twin ballrooms, setting the stage for two days of 15-minute one-on-one meetings, which took place between keynote and track sessions. All one-on-one sessions had been previously scheduled, confirmed, and in some cases, updated by the platform.

Throughout Fintech Meetup keynote and panel sessions, exhibit hall demos, table talks and one-on-one meetings, participants shared perspectives on recent bank failures and current economic and geopolitical uncertainties, openly speculating about their potential impact on financial services and fintech sectors.

Comparing the current fintech landscape to 2009, Lear stated the industry is at a critical juncture. "Just as we were back in 2009, our industry is facing some challenges," he said. "Everyone is trying to understand and evaluate the impact unfolding banking issues will have on the broader economy and industry. But despite these issues, and the seriousness of current challenges, the outlook for fintech is incredibly bright, and I couldn't be more optimistic about our future together."

Whether you want to upgrade your POS offerings, find a payment gateway partner, bone up on fintech regs or PCI requirements, find an upcoming trade show, read about faster payments, or discover the latest innovations in merchant acquiring, The Green Sheet is the resource for you. Since 1983, we've helped empower and connect payments professionals, starting with the merchant level salespeople who bring tailored payment acceptance and digital commerce tools, along with a host of other business services to merchants across the globe. The Green Sheet Inc. is also a proud affiliate of Bankcard Life, a premier community that provides industry-leading training and resources for payment professionals.

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