This post was created by the team at Caliber Corporate Advisers.

In a few weeks, Money20/20 USA returns to Las Vegas. Between October 26–29, more than 11,000 fintech, banking, payments and financial services professionals from across the globe will converge at The Venetian Resort.

Under the theme “Create the Future,” fintech’s biggest annual event highlights how the industry is shifting from bold ideas to tangible impact at scale.

AI is no longer a headline-grabbing experiment but a practical tool that is reshaping how we think about work, fintech IPOs are back on the agenda and global payment models are forcing incumbents to rethink everything from settlement networks to open finance protocols.

Those shifts, among others, are reflected in Money20/20 USA’s 2025 agenda, which centers on four pillars:

Fintech Spring
The Age of Infrastructure
The Global Payments Race
Securing Trust

Within those pillars, here are seven themes we expect to dominate the conversation at Money20/20 USA 2025.

1. Fintech is back in a big way

After a few cautious years, fintech is regaining momentum. Venture capital activity is warming, IPO pipelines are moving and startups are emerging with refined business models shaped by the last decade of trial and error. The implication? Fintech is increasingly becoming integrated into the fabric of financial services.

The debut of The Intersection Stage makes that shift explicit. Expect to see banks, asset managers and fintech leaders focusing on how to collaborate rather than compete.

For example, in the keynote The Next Chapter in Banking Growth and Innovation expect incumbent perspective, asking how established players can adapt quickly enough to keep pace with fintech’s momentum.

Other sessions, such as Banks vs. Crypto vs. Asset Managers (Spoiler: They All Win), will take a different angle, highlighting ways so-called rivals can find common ground as digital assets, banking and investment strategies converge.

The takeaway: Fintech’s “spring” isn’t about hype cycles — it’s about proving resilience, winning trust from investors and demonstrating that collaboration between old and new institutions is now the rule, not the exception.

2. Infrastructure will drive the next wave of innovation

Much of fintech’s progress in 2025 isn’t about the next flashy app. It’s about the plumbing underneath.

Legacy payment rails are being challenged by real-time settlement networks. Core banking systems are being rebuilt on cloud-native platforms. Open finance protocols and APIs are making it easier for institutions to share data and launch new services. And digital asset infrastructure — particularly stablecoins and tokenization — is moving closer to mainstream adoption.

This is what Money20/20 calls The Age of Infrastructure, with sessions like Innovative Banking Starts with Infrastructure focusing on the vital role of secure cloud infrastructure in realizing the real promise of agentic AI. Without it, AI risks being slow, ineffective or even unsafe in large, regulated organizations.

That same logic extends beyond systems, with Beyond the Backend: Crafting Customer-First Narratives in Finance highlighting how infrastructure decisions directly shape the customer experience.

Consolidation is accelerating, too. “Acquire or be acquired” is becoming a common refrain as firms recognize that stronger foundations are no longer optional. Whether it’s payments, open finance or digital identity, the players modernizing their infrastructure now will be the ones positioned to deliver speed, reliability and trust at scale.

The takeaway: Infrastructure may not always grab headlines, but it will play an outsized role in who can best adapt, integrate and grow.

3. The global payments race is heating up

Once seen as a utility, payments are now one of fintech’s most competitive frontiers. At Money20/20, discussions will reflect how these models are influencing cross-border remittances, humanitarian finance and the role of stablecoins in everyday money movement.

Among the sessions illustrating these themes are Aid Without Borders: Unlocking Humanitarian Finance Through Digital Innovation, which will look at the role digital wallets and blockchain can play in expediting the movement of relief funds while lending greater transparency, and Reinforcing Payments Strategies for a Fluctuating Global Economy, which points to the need for payment networks that can withstand volatility while scaling globally.

The takeaway: The global payments race will favor systems that move money quickly, consistently and across borders without disruption.

4. Fighting fraud without losing customers

One unintended consequence of faster money movement? The tendency for bad actors to adapt as quickly. Deepfake scams, synthetic IDs and new attack vectors are all testing traditional defenses. At the same time, customers have come to expect frictionless access — too much friction and they’ll look for alternatives.

The agenda reflects that tension, with sessions on real-time fraud detection, AI-driven risk models and digital identity. One such session, Scamdemic Solutions: AI, Not Anecdotes, will underscore how manual monitoring and anecdotal fixes can’t keep up with modern fraud. AI’s strength in pattern recognition — spotting anomalies across massive transaction datasets in real time — is what makes it indispensable against fast-evolving cybercrime.

Boosting Customer Trust with Dynamic Risk-Based Decisions builds on this idea, showing how risk models can separate legitimate customers from potential fraud without adding unnecessary friction. The Hateful Eight: Obstacles to Fraud and Their Solutions takes a wider angle, laying out the most challenging threats facing the industry and how firms are trying to stay ahead of them.

The takeaway: Maintaining trust requires constant defense — not just in systems, but in the way companies communicate credibility to their customers.

5. For AI, the true test is scalability

AI is everywhere in 2025, and this year’s Money20/20 USA reflects that. Sessions are less focused on potential and more on execution, with this year’s agenda focusing on how AI is being embedded in operations like underwriting, risk, payments and business finance.

A marquee moment in the AI-infrastructure conversation is the fireside Beyond Legacy Systems: Building the AI-Powered Financial Tech Stack of Tomorrow. Its presence signals that AI is fast becoming a foundational architecture.

Other sessions hint at how that architecture will actually be used. The Future of Shopping: How AI and Agents Will Rewrite the Rules of Commerce will explore the many ways autonomous agents and AI are moving directly into core consumer experiences. How GenAI Is Transforming Small Business Finance, meanwhile, points toward AI’s role in redefining cash flow, lending decisions and operational insights for smaller firms.

The takeaway: In 2025, AI’s success will be judged not bold predictions but by its ability to integrate at scale.

6. Digital assets and stablecoins go the mainstream

After more than a decade of hype, the sentiment around crypto is shifting. Sure, there are still plenty of highly speculative coins out there, but the long-promised utility of stablecoins and tokenized assets is beginning to take shape.

At Money20/20, the focus isn’t on whether digital assets belong in finance. It's on how they’re being built into payment networks, settlement processes and compliance systems.

Making this point clear, panels such as Frenemies, Friction, and the $27T Opportunity: Inside the Stablecoin Revolution will bring bankers and policymakers together to debate what mainstream adoption could look like and what rules will be needed to support it. Others will address tokenization’s role in modernizing settlement and the infrastructure needed to facilitate interoperability across markets.

The takeaway: Crypto isn’t going away. Far from it. Rather, it’s being absorbed into the broader financial infrastructure, with stablecoins in particular emerging as tools with potential to reshape payments and compliance.

7. Regulation as a recipe for growth

No major fintech conversation would be complete without discussions on policy and regulation, and here 2025 could be a pivotal year. Stablecoin legislation is advancing in the U.S., open banking frameworks are under review and global privacy standards are tightening.

Sessions such as The Regulatory Balancing Act: How to Regulate Amidst Tech Transformation and A View From Congress: The Future of Financial Innovation outline the tension between regulators’ need to protect consumers and markets without throttling innovation, with former and current policymakers weighing in on how to strike the balance.

As with any topic, though, Money20/20 showcases differing points of view. Offering a contrasting viewpoint, Financial Regulation Is the Ultimate Growth Engine will make the case that smart regulation can actually unlock new business models, in the process growing customer trust.

The takeaway: Regulation can be a differentiator for businesses that prepare in advance for emerging rules and adapt quickly as they take shape.

Creating the future at Money20/20

Money20/20 is always about the future, but 2025 feels different. The conversations on AI, infrastructure, payments, regulation and trust will shape more than just the future of fintech or even finance, in general.

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They’ll shape the way we live, work and interact with money, making it crucial that your brand stands out in this rapidly evolving landscape.