Key Themes from Money20/20

The 13th Money20/20 at The Venetian in Las Vegas did not disappoint this year with partnership announcements, product launches and the floor packed with the leading payment players. With over 11,000 attendees, it is the largest payments conference in the US. The key themes underlying many presentations of the conference were stablecoin applications, open finance, AI and payment security. The central technology to innovation remains the increased capabilities of mobile devices and the integration of AI everywhere.

M-commerce: The underlying technology driving payments

Total m-commerce doubled over the last five years and is expected to increase by 68% over the next five years. At Money20/20 USA 2025, mobile commerce was no longer treated as a side note – it was positioned as a structural pillar of financial innovation. The conference’s tone reflected a long-awaited reality: mobile is not just a channel – it’s the operating system of modern finance. With global m-commerce projected to surpass USD15.8 trillion by 2030, fintech leaders used Las Vegas to showcase how smartphones are becoming the primary gateway for payments, lending and embedded financial services.

One of the sessions was “Mobile Hijack: The New Face of Financial Fraud”, a fireside chat that underscored the double-edged nature of mobile dominance. Speakers warned that as mobile wallets and super-apps proliferate, fraudsters are exploiting device-level vulnerabilities. The discussion highlighted adaptive authentication and biometric security as critical countermeasures, to ensure that consumer trust in digital ecosystems remains high. The total value lost to fraud from card payments doubled over the last five years to reach USD30 billion. This has been driven by the rapid shift of retail online from in-store channels and fraud solutions not advancing as fast as fraudsters. Although fraud is a global priority for payments, it is primarily driven by the US market. The US accounted for 74% of global value lost to fraud in 2025.

Stablecoin, embedded finance and agentic AI

The three themes that were echoed throughout the conference sessions were embedded payments, stablecoin and other digital currency applications, and agentic AI.

• Embedded Finance Everywhere: Sessions under the FinTech Spring pillar explored how apps – from ride-hailing to retail – are embedding payments directly into user journeys. PayPal’s Venmo-Bilt partnership, that was announced at the conference, exemplifies this trend, turning rent payments into credit-building opportunities – all within a mobile interface.
• Agentic Commerce on Mobile: AI-driven “digital coworkers” are now powering mobile transactions. In “From Act to Transact: Empowering AI Agents to Pay”, American Express CTO Hilary Packer detailed how autonomous AI agents will soon execute payments via mobile apps without human intervention.
• QR and Instant Payments: Emerging markets were a recurring theme, with speakers noting that QR-based mobile payments are leapfrogging card rails in Asia and Latin America. This aligns with Euromonitor’s own insights on mobile-first adoption in developing economies, where smartphones are the de facto banking infrastructure.

Stablecoins, once a crypto curiosity, emerged as a cornerstone of global liquidity. Panels like “Frenemies, Friction, and the $27 Trillion Opportunity: Inside the Stablecoin Revolution” and “Crypto Payment Barriers Burning Down” examined their migration into mainstream commerce. Western Union’s announcement of its US Dollar Payment Token (USDPT), leveraging Solana, epitomised this shift. Regulatory clarity – from the US Genius Act to Europe’s MiCA – has accelerated adoption, positioning stablecoins as enablers of faster, cheaper cross-border flows.

Money20/20 USA 2025 confirmed what markets already suspect: mobile commerce is not a trend – it’s the terrain. For fintechs, the smartphone is both the battlefield and the prize. Those who master embedded experiences, AI-driven automation, and trust-centric design will define the next decade of financial services.

Read our report, World Market for Payments and Lending, for more analysis on the drivers of consumer and commercial payments.