Money20/20 Revisited: Eight Key Interviews
- John San Filippo
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
By John San Filippo
The 2025 edition of Money20/20 USA was held in Las Vegas, Oct. 26-29. Finopotamus made its annual trek to Sin City for perhaps the biggest annual fintech conference in North America. While we were there, we met with a wide range of fintech experts and interviewed some we thought could provide meaningful insights for our credit union audience. Presented below is a summary of those interviews.
Ashley Knight, SVP of Product Management at Experian
Ashley Knight sat down to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of cash flow underwriting and its increasing importance to the financial services industry. Knight noted that while cash flow data is top-of-mind for lenders, it is not intended to replace traditional credit data. Instead, she views it as a complementary tool that provides a more holistic view of a consumer’s financial health. She emphasized that this data is particularly effective for financial inclusion, noting that Experian has seen up to a 25% lift in predictive power and the ability to approve 30% more applicants when leveraging cash flow insights.
For credit unions, specifically, Knight acknowledged many are still in the early stages of adoption, often asking foundational questions about how to access and use the data for decisioning. She advised that a prudent first step is to perform a retro analysis to see how cash flow data would have performed on past decisions. This can be followed by integrating it into “second chance” use cases for members who might otherwise be declined based on traditional files alone, Knight noted.
She also touched on the operational side, emphasizing that partnering with a provider that has the right infrastructure and security is critical. This ensures that member trust is maintained while navigating the complexities of open banking and consumer-permissioned data.
Key Quote: “Cash flow is going to be complementary to traditional credit data and traditional conventional credit scores overall as a way to provide another view of a consumer and their financial health.”
Sai Rangachari, Chief Product Officer at Temenos
Sai Rangachari outlined Temenos’ strategic focus on solving the operational inefficiencies that often plague legacy banking systems. He highlighted four main buckets of investment: making software installation easier and cheaper, improving daily operations through artificial intelligence (AI),such as reconciliation and reporting, enabling safer upgrades, and enhancing user experience through “conversational UX (user experience).” Rangachari argued that the future of human-product interaction will move away from navigating complex menus to simply talking to the computer, democratizing access to data for non-technical staff while still preserving powerful interfaces for power users.
The conversation also touched on the emergence of “autonomous agents” in banking. Rangachari stressed that financial institutions (FIs) prefer “human in the loop” systems where AI agents handle deterministic use cases—like compliance and fraud monitoring—while maintaining a clear audit trail. He noted that while the market may see an “agent overload” initially, the most effective solutions will eventually rise to the top.
He also discussed the Temenos Innovation Hub located in Orlando, which is designed to bring the company closer to the U.S. market and foster co-innovation with clients. Ultimately, he warned that FIs can no longer afford to stand still regarding modernization.
Key Quote: “Not doing anything is not an option... If you don’t create the innovation agility, everything you see today is going to get multiplied in the next few years.”
Patricia Montesi, Co-Founder and CEO of Qolo
Patricia Montesi described how Qolo is simplifying the fragmented payments landscape by combining issuing, acquiring, and ledgering into a single, cloud-native platform. She explained that traditionally, fintechs and FIs had to stitch together disparate point solutions for different payment rails, creating massive reconciliation headaches and engineering overhead. Qolo solves this by offering a unified platform that handles virtual account management and real-time money movement, allowing for instant reconciliation and greater visibility.
Montesi highlighted a specific use case for FIs burdened by legacy cores, such as the 30-year-old Hogan system still used by many top banks. Rather than enduring a costly “rip and replace” project, Qolo acts as an “innovation layer” that sits on top of the legacy core. This allows FIs to offer modern features—like complex virtual account hierarchies for commercial clients—without disrupting their underlying infrastructure.
She cited a recent success with KeyBank as proof of this model’s efficacy, noting they have processed $33 billion through the system since launching. By innovating at the core without replacing it, FIs can compete with tech-forward rivals immediately.
Key Quote: “We’re sort of a better bet to get to market quickly with modernization without disruption. And it allows them to keep their core and then potentially deprecate it over time.”
Rens Troost, CTO, and Brian Bauer, Head of Product at Rational Exponent
Rens Troost and Brian Bauer introduced Rational Exponent as a unique solution bridging the gap between regulatory technology (RegTech) and fintech. Their mission is to accelerate business growth by automating the often-sluggish compliance process. They identified a critical friction point in banking: the “eight-month cycle” often required to update policies or approve new products due to bureaucratic risk management layers.
Rational Exponent’s platform, RE:Agent, uses AI to ingest regulations and translate them into policies, standards, and controls. This effectively contracts the time-to-market for new products from years to weeks. They emphasized that their system is not just about “compliance at rest” (i.e., storing policies in a Governance, Risk, and Compliance, or GRC system) but “compliance in motion,” ensuring that actual FI operations and transactions align with regulatory requirements in real-time.
Troost noted that this is particularly vital for FIs approaching asset thresholds (e.g., $50 billion) that trigger heightened regulatory standards. By handling the tedious work of reading and interpreting regulations, they allow risk professionals to focus on higher-value tasks rather than hiring an army of consultants.
Key Quotes: “We believe that what AI is going to do is going to take the very good people who know how your FI works... and is going to amplify their capabilities so that you can go from having a couple hundred people in risk as a $49 billion institution and then be a $75 billion institution still with a couple of hundred people in risk,” said Troost. “We make the worst part of their jobs go away... using the intelligence, the AI-enabled expertise that we’re bringing in our RE:Agent system,” added Bauer.
Booshan Rengachari, Founder and CEO of Finzly
Booshan Rengachari explained Finzly’s approach to FI modernization, likening their platform to “Lego bricks” that allow institutions to build their own ideal payment ecosystem. He described the current state of many FIs as having siloed teams and systems for wires, ACH, and instant payments. This fragmentation creates operational inefficiencies and a confusing customer experience.
Finzly’s “Payment Galaxy” hub consolidates these rails into a single system, simplifying operations and offering a unified application programming interface (API) for innovation. Rengachari emphasized that Finzly operates parallel to the legacy core, meaning credit unions can modernize their payments capabilities—such as adding FedNow or RTP—without being held back by the limitations of their existing core provider.
He also introduced “Agent Galaxy,” an AI initiative designed to automate repetitive tasks like repairing international wires. While AI agents can handle the heavy lifting, Finzly ensures the financial institution retains control by having the agent make recommendations that a human approves, satisfying regulatory requirements for accountability, he added.
Key Quote: “We sit alongside the core... All the modernization happens in Finzly. We go to the core for two things: check the account balance, debit or credit, that’s it.”
Ran Goldshtein, SVP of Payments and Network for Fireblocks
Ran “Goldi” Goldshtein described Fireblocks as the “core banking for digital assets,” providing the infrastructure that allows FIs and credit unions to safely custody cryptocurrencies, issue stablecoins, and manage digital ledgers. He explained that Fireblocks simplifies the complex technology required to interact with blockchains, allowing institutions to consume the technology as a SaaS product much like they would a customer relationship management (CRM) solution.
Goldshtein provided a candid perspective on stablecoins, calling them “overhyped” in some regards but acknowledging their massive utility as a “regulatory arbitrage” to provide dollar access globally and speed up cross-border settlement. He cited examples of importers using stablecoins to release shipping containers days faster than traditional banking allows, capturing real economic value through speed.
However, he predicted that over the next few years, FIs will likely move toward “tokenized deposits.” Unlike stablecoins, which require one-to-one reserves, tokenized deposits allow FIs to rehypothecate funds, fitting better into traditional banking business models.
Key Quote: “It’s not that the stablecoin is cheaper or not. Just the fact that the speed allows you to capture economic value, that’s real value. That is the innovation.”
Elizabeth Gore, Co-Founder and President of Hello Alice
Elizabeth Gore detailed Hello Alice’s mission to provide equitable access to capital for Main Street small businesses. Serving 1.6 million businesses, the platform focuses on financial fitness, ensuring business owners are “underwriting ready” before they apply for loans. Gore explained that their “Business Health Score” uses AI to analyze a company’s data and provide a roadmap to improve their creditworthiness over 90 days, significantly lowering decline rates for lenders.
For credit unions, Gore positioned Hello Alice as a partner for both acquisition and engagement. Credit unions use the platform to find specific types of business borrowers (e.g., by location or industry) or to provide free educational tools to their existing business members. She noted that credit unions are uniquely positioned to serve small businesses because they understand their local communities intimately.
However, she urged credit unions to be more aggressive in offering capital. She believes that while credit unions are naturally risk-averse, they have the local knowledge required to help small businesses grow safely, provided they use the right tools to assess health.
Key Quote: “I feel like credit unions sometimes...don’t have a ton of fat on them, but taking the time to actually aggressively work with those business owners...I think they have an advantage because they know these business owners.”
Hartley Thompson, CEO of Microblink
Hartley Thompson discussed the critical role of AI in identity verification and fraud prevention, particularly in the face of new threats from generative AI and synthetic identities. He differentiated Microblink by highlighting their “progressive enhancement” strategy—rather than ripping out existing systems, they ask clients to give them their “grimiest problems” that current providers can’t solve.
Thompson noted that static identity verification (simple document and selfie checks) is “dying,” as it can no longer stand up to modern fraud vectors. A key technical differentiator Thompson highlighted is Microblink’s ability to process identities “on device.” This approach preserves privacy and enables verification in areas with poor internet connectivity, such as emerging markets, without needing to transmit sensitive data to the cloud.
He also mentioned their proprietary “fraud lab,” where they generate their own synthetic fraud attacks to train their systems. By creating the threats themselves, they can deploy defenses before fraudsters start using those same tactics at scale.
Key Quote: “Static identity verification...is dying – it’s dead...We need something that’s more adaptive and flexible and built for the modern age of identity verification and fraud threats.”