Howard Hall, Vice President Growth at Consult Hyperion, consulting by Fime, summarizes the key discussions and insights from Money2020 USA 2025, one of the leading payments industry conferences.
Fime and Consult Hyperion was out in full force at Money 20/20 Las Vegas, with Dave Birch, Xavier Giandominici, Ben Potter and Nick Norman all on the ground. Over three packed days we met with dozens of clients, partners and industry friends, both old and new. We came away inspired by how fast the world of payments, identity and digital trust is evolving.
The era of agentic AI.
Agentic AI was everywhere this year. Dave Birch’s session, supported by leaders from Mastercard explored how intelligent, autonomous agents will reshape the way money moves and decisions get made. These aren’t just chatbots; they’re systems capable of acting on our behalf, initiating payments, verifying identity and managing risk. The question everyone is asking now is: how do we trust the agent? What are the new signals, frameworks and governance models that let us verify that an AI acting for us is doing the right thing?
This conversation dovetails perfectly with our heritage in digital identity and trust frameworks. It’s one thing to build an agent; it’s another to ensure that it’s secure, compliant and grounded in real-world identity. That’s where we come in.
Stablecoins and the future of money.
Stablecoins and tokenized money continued to capture attention across panels and side discussions. There’s a growing sense that programmable value, whether through stablecoins or digital fiat will be the natural companion to agentic AI. If agents are going to act, they’ll need a medium of exchange that is fast, programmable and secure.
We heard repeatedly that firms want help bridging the gap between experimentation and production. This is the kind of challenge Consult Hyperion thrives on combining technical insight with regulatory understanding to make the next generation of payment rails real.
Insights from dozens of client conversations.
Our one-to-one meetings revealed a lot about what’s on the minds of our clients and partners:
- Platform resilience and optimization came up again and again — from large fintechs re-evaluating their processing infrastructure to global brands seeking help rationalizing fragmented payment systems across multiple geographies and logos.
- Digital identity and trust frameworks were top of mind. Organizations across banking, payments and big tech are exploring how to extend KYC into the world of Know-Your-Agent (KYA) and mDL.
- Tokenization and security continue to present both opportunity and friction. Several firms are revisiting their existing implementations and seeking a path toward scalable, interoperable solutions.
- Go-to-market alignment remains a challenge. Many companies are looking for help in shaping adjacent services, workshop and partnership strategies are areas that were top of mind.
- Sector-specific certification and standards are shifting. We heard updates from trusted partners working to reshape digital-identity assurance around specific industries rather than one-size-fits-all frameworks.
These conversations reaffirmed what we already know: clients value practical, implementation-level understanding of the complex ecosystems that connect identity, payments and technology.
Why this matters.
For nearly three decades, Consult Hyperion has helped organizations around the world navigate the intersection of trust, technology and financial inclusion. Whether it’s designing new tokenization schemes, building digital-identity frameworks or testing payment systems with Fime, our work sits at the core of where the industry is heading.
Money 20/20 was a reminder that we’re entering a new chapter, one where human and machine actors coexist in digital ecosystems that demand security, privacy and interoperability from the start.
Let’s continue the conversation.
If you’d like to explore how agentic AI, stablecoins or next-generation identity can be built safely and responsibly into your business, we’d love to talk. Reach out to our team and let’s turn these conference insights into real-world strategies and implementations.
