Greetings from fabulous Las Vegas! Cognito is on site at the nation’s largest payments conference, learning more about innovations in the industry, the movers and shakers setting the agenda and of course all that fintech.
Day 1 is all about who you are sitting next to on the flight out (twitter reports from Empire Startups found Jon Zanoff’s flight had it’s own Slack channel) and getting set up for the week ahead. Then it is straight to the learning.
The keynote sessions on the first day were highlighted by a conversation with John Sculley, Vice Chairman of Lantern Credit who said the rate of change in fintech is driving a change in thinking. Whereas we are typically trained to think of time as linear, we need to adapt to think of exponential time instead. As an example, Sculley pointed to how customers care more about the opinions of other customers than they do about the opinion of the company. Companies need to learn to adapt or get left behind.
The consumer was at the heart of the evening’s keynote addresses as the final address of the night was delivered by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray.
The Wall Street Journal did an excellent job with the reporting of Cordray’s speech, highlighting the importance of the regulators in new fintech products that are focused on consumers and pointing to the planned released of the CFPB’s “Project Catalyst” report, which “is meant to help firms test consumer financial products under the oversight of the bureau.”
Even though Cordray’s speech gave some more needed direction on regulation in fintech, the most memorable event of the night may well be the rainout. Following the presentation by Cordray the Money 20/20 attendees moved en masse to the 4th floor pool deck of the Venetian for the K&L Gates and Oak HC/FT poolside party. Much to our surprise, and the surprise of practically everyone in the desert city, we were greeted by a steady drizzle that quickly picked up into an annoying persistent rain.
We suppose that is one way to disrupt payments.
Looking forward to Day 2, where the conversation kicks into high gear. Keep an eye out for us darting between the media room and the exhibition center. Be sure to follow along with all the antics on twitter and on Snapschat.