Money20/20 and the Making of a Market-Defining Conference

A dive into how the most influential fintech conference came to be, why it matters, and how it can evolve.

“A groundbreaking conference and exposition for emerging payments and financial services” — that was the world’s introduction to “Money2020”.¹ This premier payments conference has always highlighted the innovations and trends shaping the ways we earn, save, manage, borrow, and spend money.

Walking the exhibit hall last week, I wondered how this conference came to be and why it was THE place to be in payments and fintech.² Turns out, Money 20/20 was far from a guaranteed success when it was founded in 2012, but it was also far from an overnight success.

The first conference was the result of a decade-long collaboration between a group of serial entrepreneurs. This group had already successfully founded and exited companies, started trade shows, and created industry associations. By tracing the founding decisions (agenda, pricing, sponsorships, and setup for sale), we’ll see how a conference became a market-defining institution.

Not Their First Rodeo

Money 20/20 was an “overnight success” for two key reasons. First, co-founders, Anil Aggarwal and Jonathan Weiner, were well connected in the payments industry. More importantly though, Money 20/20 wasn’t the first industry conference the pair had founded.

Anil Aggarwal is, by all measures, a serial entrepreneur. Between 1997 and 2012, he successfully founded and sold three companies for a combined +$200MM.³ Jonathan Weiner was an early employee or co-founder at two of Aggarwal’s startups, Clarity Payments (later TSYS Prepaid) and TxVia (acquired by Google Wallet). By the time Money 20/20 was announced 2012, the pair were well connected in the East Coast financial ecosystem and the West Coast technology scene.⁴

While working for TSYS Prepaid in 2005, the pair launched Prepaid Media and founded the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association. In 2006, they created a trade publication Paybefore and launched the Prepaid Card Expo industry conference.⁵ These efforts brought together thousands of practitioners in the prepaid card industry and attracted the attention of events management company Informa.⁶ They purchased Prepaid Media, Paybefore, and Prepaid Card Expo for $2.85 MM in January 2007.⁷

“What will money look like in 2020?”

Shortly after TxVia was acquired by Google in 2012⁸, Aggarwal and Weiner asked the world “what will money look like in 2020?” This was a pressing question as the finance, payments, and technology industries were experiencing a massive amount of change post-financial crisis. Disruptive technology like the smartphone, online shopping, and blockchain created new challenges for incumbents and opportunities for startups; attracting capital from the venture community.

To answer that question, they introduced the world to Money 20/20.⁹ It was billed as “the only event that focuses on how niche innovations are collectively shaping the new reality of money.”¹⁰ The event would face steep competition as the payments conference market already had established events like Fintech 2012 (now FinTech South) and Mobile Expo.¹¹ They had something that the others didn’t have — the deep pockets of Silicon Valley and Wall Street.

Funding the Event

Conferences then and now are funded primarily through sponsorships and ticket sales. Standard tickets for the first Money 20/20 were set at $1,295 which jumped to $2,095 by early July. It can be reasoned that attendees balked at this price, as it was reduced to $1,895 from July through the event. Ticket sales, however, can only get you so far. To put on an event at scale, you need institutional backing.

The initial sponsor list was headlined by Google Wallet (Aggarwal and Weiner’s employer), American Express, and The Bancorp Bank — two of TxVia’s largest partners. Minor sponsors included pre-paid and rewards companies, investment funds, and a non-profit. Had Money 20/20 not had the backing of those first three names, it’s unlikely that the event would’ve been so successful. These big names signaled to the market that this was an event to take seriously and helped to attract the earliest sign-ups.¹²

Attracting Speakers and Attendees

People want to go to the parties where their friends are going. This network effect is what makes starting new events so challenging. Money 20/20 overcame this thanks to Aggarwal and Weiner’s extensive network built over a dozen years in fintech. They first attracted Suze Orman, then host of The Suze Orman Show on CNBC, to headline the event.

The original Money 20/20 speaker lineup. This caricature art style remains a staple of the event to this day. source

Orman was the only listed speaker until July when the list rapidly expanded to 20 then 100 and finally 322 speakers by the time the show kicked off in October. Over 32% of the speakers were sourced from sponsors but others included industry names like Osama Bedier (Google Wallet) and Laura Kelly (Amex).¹³ These speakers came from every corner of the banking, payments, and technology sectors and helped to attract ~2,300 signups — selling out the event by early October. All that was left was the agenda.

Sparking Conversation and Driving the Industry Forward

From the beginning, Money 20/20 was an event built around networking. “I am bringing six months worth of meetings down into two days,” Shamir Karkal explained in a 2012 interview. The management team encouraged banks, governments, and startups to attend with +30% discounts, because groups were exactly who established fintech and financial services companies wanted to speak with.

Outside of meetings, the team at Money 20/20 sought to focus the agenda on “niche innovations” that were “shaping the new reality of money.” The sessions were focused on emerging payments trends and were the to-do list for the industry. Topics like virtual currencies, digital wallets, and alternative credit remain relevant to this day. It also included some trends that were more a factor of investor hype like “mobile form factors” or “online-to-offline commerce” and holdovers from the co-founder’s previous endeavors such as “closing the redemption loop.”

All of it came together in a whirlwind three days that one attendee described to me as “magical” and “the most simultaneously exhilarated and tired I’ve ever been.” The event sparked a phenomenon that grew from 2,000 attendees in 2012 to more than 7,500 by 2014. Following the third conference, it was sold to British events company i2i for an estimated $100MM. As Gareth Jones wrote following the announcement “Anil Aggarwal and Jonathan Weiner do it again…”¹⁴

Why Money 20/20 Still Matters

Money 20/20 still remains the fintech and payments industry’s premier conference for two reasons. First, technology has continued to disrupt the industry. AI, blockchain, and agentic commerce (more on that here) are poised to reshape the industry in the coming years. Second, the power of human connection and in-person networks is stronger than ever. Networking has spawned a cottage industry of companies who forego passes and instead camp just outside the expo entrance to have coffee or a meal in the Venetian or nearby on the Strip.

The agenda is still heavily influenced by sponsors and major themes (e.g., AI and blockchain), but now the sponsor speaker mix is closer to 21% than the 32% seen in 2012. Money 20/20 has also added tracks for Startups and Women in Payments along with the 2025 “Money Awards” which have breathed new life into the event.

Conclusion

The influence of Money 20/20 has waned somewhat in recent years. The market has once again become saturated with regional Money 20/20 events and competing conferences — including Fintech Meetup, another Aggarwal/Weiner conference. On the macro side, regulations, rising interest rates, and the diminishing returns on the original fintech investment thesis are shifting VC money elsewhere. All of this has left the industry as a whole feeling adrift since the “Fintech Winter” of 2023.

Fintech is searching for a new spark, and perhaps it can be found in the new connections. Just like Aggarwal and Weiner connected East Coast banking and finance with West Coast venture capital and technology, there’s a chance to connect on a global scale to revolutionize the industry once again.

The industry used to be lumped under financial services or information technology. Over the last 13 years, we’ve seen the industry leaning into the “tech” part of fintech. Perhaps the next chapter sees us returning to our roots while connecting to the rest of the world. To understand that, we’ll need to come together and rediscover our soul.

In full transparency, my attendance at this year’s Money 20/20 was fully compensated by the conference as a member of the press. Money 20/20 does not maintain editorial control or review of this or any of my posts.

Disclaimer: I am an employee of Global Payments. The posts (or views) on this site are my own and do not reflect the positions, strategies or opinions of Global Payments Inc.

1. The space and “/” would come later, however, I’ll be using “Money 20/20” from here on to avoid confusion.

2. I searched Wikipedia, but found no answer. Naturally, I started digging and writing the article myself.

3. He also graduated college at 19 before going on to get a law degree from Columbia by 25. His first startup, AAA Growers, was a Nairobi-based fresh produce exporter that at one time was the fifth largest fresh goods exporter from Kenya to the U.K.

4. I’ll touch more on this later, but, in a way, these were two of the only people who could have founded an event like this. By bridging East Coast (NYC & Atlanta) with West Coast (Silicon Valley), they helped define what fintech was and could be.

5. Most of this comes from Aggarwal’s TxVia management team bio. https://web.archive.org/web/20090816165142/http://www.txvia.com/team/A-Aggarwal.html

6. If you know, you know this is foreshadowing.

7. Source: Informa’s 2007 Annual Report, pages 113-114. https://www.informa.com/globalassets/documents/investor-relations/reports/2007/informa_annual_report_signed_off_final.pdf

8. Google acquires TxVia (2012) Google Commerce. Available at: https://commerce.googleblog.com/2012/04/google-acquires-txvia.html (Accessed: 01 November 2025).

9. The launch video is peak 2012 animation, narration, and humor. I laughed, cried, and cringed. 10/10 worth a watch here: https://vimeo.com/41563784

10. https://web.archive.org/web/20120330012833/http://www.money2020.com/

11. Remember, mobile payments were the next big thing in payments innovation for most of 2005-2012. For more on that, check out the story of Firethorn here.

12. This is total conjecture and would require interviews with several people, including Aggarwal and Weiner, but I suspect that part of the TxVia acquisition terms included a clause requiring Google to sponsor this first event. Again, this is my opinion and complete speculation — inbox is open if anyone wants to confirm or deny → wilson@financialrewinds.com

13. Source: the September 2012 capture of the Money 20/20 website: https://web.archive.org/web/20120918195240/http://money2020.com/

14. They actually did it one more time with Fintech Meetup following the pair’s exit from Money 20/20. But that’s a story for another day.