Welcome, we are here at Money 2020 in Amsterdam, and I'm very honored to be joined by Tracey Davies, who is the president of Money 2020.
Tracey, thank you for joining me.
Oh, it's exciting to be here.
Thank you for what have you heard across the floor.
There's been a lot of buzz going on, we've just kicked off the first day.
What's the, what's the thing you've overheard the most apart from the genetic AI?
Damn, you took a stablecoin.
Uh, there's a lot of buzz out there.
I mean, we've got, I think, more than, I think we're more than 7700 people here.
It's our biggest show since the sort of COVID comeback, 2000 companies.
There's a lot of buzz out there.
There's a lot of energy, um, but yeah, I'm sure we're gonna get into that, right?
You know, you mentioned Agentic, so you, you took the buzzword first, but I think it's gone beyond buzz, so we'll probably get to that.
Uh, stablecoin, digital asset.
But yes, they're the big frothy topics that everyone's talking about, but of course underneath it is, you know, the core payments, banking, um, you know, lots of new things come in, but you know, the core remains.
On those new things, what do you think the change has been, you know, between creating the content, the program from last year to this year?
What do you think the shift, the main headline shift has been?
Yeah, it's a great question because I mean, obviously we do.
Shows around the world.
So you sort of see it sort of bubble and then, you know, change over the year, but you're sort of starting to see because obviously since we've been here this time last year, we've been in Riyadh, Vegas, Miami, and Asia.
So you know, you've started to see, and I think this time last year there was a lot of talk, let's be clear about AI, but it definitely hadn't gone full gentic.
And so I think that has been the thing.
Uh, and stablecoin, a lot more use cases, and I think that's the thing, there was a lot of conversation last year, but I think you're seeing real use cases, a lot more conversation, and also divergence of opinion.
You know, not everyone is stablecointastic, you know, there are different views emerging, quite strong views, and you know, you start to see that as a topic, uh, uh, and a technology moves more into, uh, the practical.
Implications I guess.
And that's what's so wonderful about events like these, you get those conversations really fleshed out rather than just the headline hype, like, let's really get into this fully fledged debate.
Well that is our goal that we go beyond the hype and you know, and I think that's really important for people who You know, want, want to learn and want to know what's going on, but you have to get beyond the hype.
And we have had the hype phase in AI and stablecoin and um digital asset, definitely, as we've had with other things before, you know, this is an industry that keeps changing, but yes, you. to get beyond the hype.
Part of that progress phase.
And speaking of progress, you previously had mentioned this wonderful term, which is that we're moving from AI integration to delegation.
What does that really mean for reshaping finance?
Well, I think.
Uh, well, I think what you're seeing now with AI is, I mean, it's, it's hard not to talk about AI without agentic because obviously the whole, you know, you've had the sort of exploration stage and now you're in this sort of agentic and autonomous.
I mean, isn't it like 50% of all tokens are now agentic, you know, not human to, to chatbot, but agent to agent, and I think that's been the big shift this year.
Um, now of course.
Not everybody is at that frontier stage.
There's still a lot of people researching and exploring.
If we have those phases, you know, we're researching, we're exploring, maybe we're piloting versus a full rollout.
But you've only got to look at some of the numbers, uh, some of the big banks, how many AI programs they've got, and, you know, what is happening in the big.
Enterprise apps, how many of those AI features, um, you know, it really is being rolled out.
It, it has moved.
There are different speeds, but, but we are in practical application.
And I, I think that's what's so fascinating is that, you know, it, it won't be looked at in history books as very long at all, but for the last couple of years, plenty of murmurings and then actually it happens all at once.
Um, and to that kind of tipping point.
I, you know, point about AI, do you think that we can say the same about stablecoins?
Um, and especially just maybe the role that they play, beyond the crypto space into the rest of finance.
I mean, I think, are we at a tipping point?
I think it depends where you are.
It really depends on different countries.
I mean, there's been, if you look at some of the, um, like the Latin American country, you look at Argentina and you look at the adoption of stablecoin, for reasons that we know, right, where you have instability of currency, you know, there is a lot of adoption.
Um, it was interesting when we awarded our first money 2020 awards in Vegas last October, that yellow card.
Um, an African fintech enabling cross-border payments in Africa using stablecoin.
So I think it depends where you are.
Asia, we see, you know, big adoption.
Uh, you know, is that touching the lives of the average consumer yet in, say, the UK, Europe, uh, the US?
No, um, but you know, we are seeing massive coverage of it in the industry and obviously, so, you know, it is the big trend, it is here to stay.
Um, if you think about moving money across border, we all know it's, it's really hard and stablecoin is enabling, you know.
Quicker, more cost effective.
Now, not everyone agrees, and that's the thing that that's part of the conversation we like, you know, I was sitting with someone last night and you know, they're firmly of the view that stablecoins is not the way the industry goes, but that's what makes this industry so fascinating is the different opinions.
And you know I was just talking to uh Uniay, you know, are based out of Colombia and talking about what's happening in their market and.
You do see real adoptions, so I think we're at different speeds in different places.
And I think to your point there, and it's the same for AI across the board, when we say progress, do we mean has it changed the status quo, or do we mean has it filled gaps that were otherwise unfillable by either traditional finance or fintech as it was, and, and that's a, that's a an important shift in our conversation because like you say, what Yellowcard is doing is, is not to be dismissed.
This is untapped value.
Yeah, and, uh, and you know, won the Grand Prix of the whole payments category at the first money 2020 awards.
So, you know, that was interesting itself, but I think with, you know, of course there are different speeds.
We know the, the use cases around fraud and, you know, etc. etc. um, but you know, look, AI is a technology changing many industries and everyone's trying to work out, you know, what is the use case, where can it be applied.
There's obviously a lot of hype.
You know, we see that in terms of replacement of jobs and is that, you know, and I was talking to someone last night and they were like, we've adopted AI massively, we've not lost a single job, then you have, you know, so of course we're in an emerging phase of this technology and that is gonna carry on for some time.
Has AI got massive benefits for the financial services industry.
Absolutely.
I mean, I, there is no doubt for all industries.
You know, we know that with medical and all sorts of areas.
But I think we're in that stage of figuring out, you know, as we said, you know, what's real, what isn't, what we're gonna do.
But it, it's clear that, you know, it.
It's a huge, huge shift.
You, you need to lean into it I think and in that lean, um, as all these shifts happen across the landscape, across fintech, across traditional finance, ultimately who owns the, the customer relationship in, in the future of finance?
Is it all a robot?
I mean, the thing about money is, and you think about us as you humans, consumers, you have to have trust who is moving your money and storing your money.
And I don't think that changes in, you know, when we look at the future of financial services, trust is really important.
And people really trust, um.
You know, the institutions often, you know, the well-known household names.
Now is that gonna change?
I mean there's a session, I think tomorrow with the UK CEO of Revolut, Francesca, and that's about, can a digital bank like Revolut become, Your main bank, yeah, and I think, yes, people are starting to see that and certainly if you ask my daughter who's 24, um, you know, there are different patterns emerging with different agendas, but who or with uh different generations, but who, it's gonna be about trust and I think.
Trust is still really important.
If you look at what the big brands, if you think about, uh, you know, what we've seen with Klarna, we've had the CMOs of Klarna and Checkout spoke last year and how much and care they are taking in building those brands.
But that's for recognition, it's for customer acquisition, but it's also about trust.
And so trust, it's hard to say who will own the customer.
The one who wins the trust is probably my answer.
And actually, again, quite nicely in that is the digitalization means different options for what trust means to you, whether looking at different cultures or simply just different groups across society, it means something different.
Exactly, and if you think about, you know, the example I was giving is stablecoin adoption for moving money in Argentina.
Yeah, well, you might trust different organizations because the security and the value of your money, um, has been challenged and so you're putting your trust where you believe it will hold its value.
So again it depends how you're coming at the situation and where you are in the world.
I think that's the other thing to remember.
As we sit here in Europe and there's a lot of conversation about what steelcoin means in Europe, and obviously we know the majority of steel coins can tether to the dollar.
There's a lot of conversation here, of course, in Amsterdam about European sovereignty and financial services, the role of central banks, you know, the role of, you know, there's a whole regulation piece we could get into and actually just to Wrap up the conversation on a really nice topic.
We keep coming back to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, clearly is such a hub of tech.
I know you guys had a big event yesterday.
Why Amsterdam and what, what brings you all here?
Well, we've been in Amsterdam since 2018, so of our 10 years now, 8 here, we were in Copenhagen before.
We love Amsterdam, you know, and yes, it's a fact.
I was closing the, uh, Amsterdam Stock Exchange last night.
We rang the, the gong, uh, and closed the stock exchange.
Here we are with, you know, NYSE.
We've also closed, uh, that stock exchange.
Um, so Amsterdam is an important financial center.
We obviously have lots and lots of fintechs here, Molly, Adan, obviously, and many others.
So of course that's important, but.
You know, we like it.
It's a fabulous city.
Our customers ultimately like coming here.
We have a great partner in the Rye, um, and it's, it's a great home, and it's been our long term home, and we, and it seems like to come here.
Wonderful place to bring that private public conversation and.
Drive that.
So it's going to be a big conversation this week.
We know that the regulators are here in force.
You know, that's a whole another conversation.
Anastasia, maybe not the moment to go there, but thank you.
Thank you so much for joining us.
And we're really excited for the next 3 days.
