Hi there!

Less than three weeks to go, it’s time to focus. 

This issue cuts to the backbone of Money20/20 Europe—where SME funding, capital markets, and user experience are being redefined. We spotlight the sessions leading those shifts, track how embedded finance is moving from concept to scale, and flag where key players will be speaking.

📌 Where Leaders Should Be Sitting Down

Financial services is moving from product launches to platform rewrites. The infrastructure behind lending, payments, and risk is being rebuilt around automation, AI, and embedded delivery.

But the gap between ambition and execution is still wide—particularly when it comes to funding SMEs and securing commerce at scale. These sessions offer a look at where that gap is closing, and what that means for the next generation of financial products.

💸 Funding Infrastructure for the SME Economy

🔹 The Future of SME Finance
📅 Tuesday 3 June | 🕥 10:55–11:20 | 📍 Na.i.ture Stage

Xero CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy joins NALA’s Benjamin Fernandes to discuss how automation and AI are set to reshape SME finance. Expect insight into real-time accounting, lending, and where tech is finally catching up with SME needs.

🔹 Empowering Emerging Markets: AI-Driven B2B Payment Solutions for Cross-Border Trade
📅 Tuesday 3 June | 🕐 13:46–13:53 | 📍 MoneyPot Stage

This rapid-fire product pitch introduces a streamlined alternative to the status quo in cross-border payments. With SMEs struggling under the weight of legacy infrastructure, XTransfer’s model uses local currency accounts and banking partnerships to remove friction—and cost—from international transactions.

🤖 AI, Commerce, and Embedded Trust

🔹 Trust Reimagined: Harnessing AI for Seamless and Secure Embedded Commerce
📅 Tuesday 3 June | 🕒 15:40–16:05 | 📍 Summits Stage

From real-time fraud to chargeback management and digital identity, this session brings together execs from Mastercard, Justt, and Ravelin. They’ll break down scalable trust frameworks for embedded commerce and highlight where AI is having a measurable impact.

🔹 Transforming the User Journey with Gen AI
📅 Tuesday 3 June | 🕙 10:40–11:05 | 📍 Horizon Stage powered by Mastercard

Koodoo CEO Andrei Lebed joins Experian’s Shail Deep to explore how generative AI is being applied to consumer finance—starting with mortgages. The session dives into real use cases, from AI-guided applications to automated credit scoring and operational streamlining. It's a clear signal that user experience is becoming a competitive edge, and financial services are starting to treat it that way.

📈 AI Strategy Meets Capital Markets

🔹 AI & IPOs: Leading Fintechs & Paths To Go Public
📅 Wednesday 4 June | 🕒 15:25–15:45 | 📍 Na.i.ture Stage

Lauren Kolodny will present original data and case studies on how leading fintechs are incorporating AI into their IPO strategies. This talk explores where AI adds valuation strength—and how scaled players are building competitive advantage in the public markets.

This year, one theme keeps coming up in conversation: precision. Not just in payments or fraud detection, but in how financial services show up for people and businesses.

📝 Editor’s Note - The End of Generic Banking

Digitization made banking easier. But it also made it harder to matter.

Customers still trust banks to hold their money, but fewer believe banks understand them. Forty percent of consumers can’t distinguish between financial services brands. In a market defined by optionality, brand becomes irrelevant without relevance.

What’s emerging isn’t a new channel or product. It’s a shift in architecture. AI is beginning to repair what digitization stripped away: personal recognition, contextual understanding, and proactive support. Nordic neobank Lunar is using generative AI tools to handle 75% of customer conversations with natural, contextual responses. Royal Bank of Canada’s NOMI uses behavioral signals to offer timely financial advice—not based on profile, but on live activity.

This shift isn’t limited to experience. Nubank serves over 100 million customers at less than $2 per month each. By building AI into the core, not the front-end, it has created scalable personalization at a fraction of traditional cost.

Banks are also redefining who they serve. Square’s early success with micro-merchants has pushed others to ask not “Is this profitable?” but “How can we serve them?”

This is no longer a question of adding features. It’s about rewiring how banks operate—away from product ownership and toward individual context. Generic banking doesn’t survive in a world of precision.

🪑 Pick Your Format, Pick Your Moment

This year’s stage formats give every type of session its own space to shine. Whether you want deep dives or rapid-fire insights, there’s a setup that fits how you learn best—and where the sharpest ideas often surface in the most unexpected corners.

🧠 One Final Thought: Show Up Strategic

Here’s how to make your Money20/20 Europe experience count:

✔ Prioritize sessions that match how your business is actually delivering — whether that’s embedded, cross-border, or compliance-led
✔ Don’t just stop by stands — dig into the use cases, and how tech integrates in real-life operations
✔ Look for the intersections — where finance, infrastructure, and regulation shape tomorrow’s competitive edge

We’ll be back next week. Until then, stay sharp — and start building your game plan for Amsterdam.

The Unofficially Money20/20 Team

Not affiliated with Money20/20

Bobsguide is a ClickZ Media publication