Money20/20 Amsterdam 2026: Stablecoins, AI Agents and What Actually Stood Out
The world's largest fintech conference celebrated its 10th birthday this year, with 7,500+ attendees (1 in 3 C-suite), 105+ countries represented, 2,300+ companies, and 450+ speakers converging on the RAI Amsterdam for three days. It was quite the memorable event.
This year's agenda was built around four pillars: AI and the agentic age, the great rebundling, the rewiring of money infrastructure, and regulation in the fast lane. In practice, two themes towered above everything else: stablecoins and AI agents.
Ecology Media was there supporting our clients. MANSA, the Tether-backed stablecoin liquidity platform for cross-border payments, had co-founder and COO Nkiru Uwaje speaking on stage about how stablecoins are transforming commerce in emerging markets, a message that carried particular weight given the company has now processed hundreds of millions in volume across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Stablecoins were everywhere at this year's event, and not in the speculative sense. The conversation has shifted from theoretical promise to practical deployment, particularly in cross-border payment corridors.
We secured on-the-ground interviews for MANSA with Bloomberg, Handelszeitung, and Crypto Focus.
The GENIUS Act, signed into US law in July 2025, has given the space its first comprehensive regulatory framework, and that clarity is clearly accelerating institutional confidence. Multiple attendees noted the leap in stablecoin-focused exhibitors and discussions compared to even a year ago.
Infrastructure and Scale
One of the more substantive discussions came from a panel exploring who owns global payments in 2026. Our client Paymentology's CEO Jeff Parker joined executives from Airwallex, Wirex, and Nium in a conversation moderated by Tanzeel Akhtar of Morley Sterling LLC.
Parker's key message was direct: "Several years ago, many businesses would have viewed their technology as their moat. Today, the technology is there. The real moat for Paymentology is our ability to operate at truly global scale."
He also highlighted the operational complexity behind modern payment infrastructure. "Processing migrations are renowned for being complex. You're dealing with multiple jurisdictions, regulations and stakeholders, all while trying to make the experience seamless for the customer. It's never simply the click of a button."
Looking ahead to AI-powered commerce, Parker noted that trust will become increasingly important. "The technology exists to create agents that can make purchases, but the question is whether those transactions are trusted and secure. That's where tokenisation becomes critical."
And while disruption continues across the industry, Parker cautioned against overlooking established players. "Don't underestimate the major players that already exist. The schemes are adapting rapidly into payment networks, not just card networks. They have the scale, the investment and the determination to continue shaping the future of payments."
AI Agents
On the AI side, "agentic" was the word of the week. The most compelling companies we spoke with were those building vertically rather than horizontally. Decagon and Sierra are leading the charge in AI-powered customer experience, working with enterprise clients like Notion, SiriusXM, and Rocket Mortgage. Gradient Labs, founded by ex-Monzo engineers, is building specialist AI agents for regulated banking workflows - lending, disputes, KYB - and recently raised $26M with 900% revenue growth. And Incognia stood out with its location-intelligence approach to fraud prevention, tying digital identity to real-world physical behaviour patterns. Their personalised promotional activities also deserve a mention - turning attendees' faces into latte art is one way to make an impression.
Money20/20 remains the industry's most important networking event. The talks are secondary to the conversations, and this year, those conversations had real substance behind them.
