25 pre-scheduled meetings, 50+ impromptu conversations and 150,000 combined steps — the sticky.io crew was busy at last week’s Money20/20 2023 conference in Las Vegas!
At sticky.io, we are committed to being at the forefront of the fintech and payments industry. Our recent attendance at the world's largest fintech conference provided us with invaluable insights and allowed us to connect with customers, partners and industry peers. The event was a testament to the ever-growing importance of the payments ecosystem and the role we play in it.
If you weren’t one of the 11,000 attendees (or just want to relive the magic!), we’ve included our team’s key takeaways.
Cost is typically a factor in every discussion at Money20/20, but it took the cake this year — likely in response to demand from investors to improve operating margins. Speakers highlighted how payments can be used to increase margins in areas such as authorization rate optimization, payment retries and routing.
Another area generating a lot of buzz, particularly within small fintech and payment service providers, is high-risk payments, with a specific emphasis on cannabis. These segments are becoming hubs of innovation as they seek the right vendors to increase their margins.
Consumers are growing increasingly more cautious of the data they share — especially when it comes to their finances. Regulators from the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) flocked to Vegas to discuss hot topics in compliance such as data protection, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML). Especially as costs climb for banks and fintech companies, tech-smart compliance is the key to conquering surging regulatory hurdles.
This compliance scrutiny comes shortly after the CFPB announced section 1033 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010. This new section, titled “Required Rulemaking on Personal Financial Data Rights,” demands banks and financial institutions to share consumer data when requested. While the CFPB drafts the new regulations over the next six months, fintech vendors will look to implement stronger fraud prevention and stricter compliance —and ecommerce merchants should evaluate their vendors closely to ensure they’re safely storing sensitive customer data.
Many attendees expected artificial intelligence (AI) to steal the show but were surprised to see a lack of current AI innovation. While there’s plenty of hype around the topic, there are very few meaningful case studies yet in payments and fintech. We also observed a trend of companies labeling machine learning (ML) models as AI for the sake of buzz, but discerning buyers can see through this — it’s essential to differentiate the value of AI above what ML models can do.
In our case, we have long been using AI and ML in our product to power Smart Dunning, a revolutionary rebill tool that can recover up to 50% of all declined transactions. However, there's excitement about genuine AI use cases in financial services, which will likely take some time to fully materialize.
Over the next 12 months, we expect to see wide adoption of generative AI for payment use cases in payment routing, decline management and authorization rate optimization. This technology will help us uncover patterns in data that were previously beyond our reach with current models. Our partnerships with Amazon Web Services and Databricks position us well to be at the forefront of these exciting developments.
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Above all else, Money20/20 highlighted the importance of quickly adapting to change to meet consumer expectations and stay relevant in the digital age.
Ecommerce merchants must partner with innovative payment service vendors who not only understand these trends but are also positioned at the forefront of these developments. Embracing changes and collaborating with forward-thinking partners will empower businesses to navigate the ever-shifting ecommerce landscape and stay lucrative for the long term.
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