Last month, FXC Intelligence attended Money20/20 in Las Vegas alongside the world's biggest payment companies, before heading to the Federal Reserve's offices in Washington for the Economics of Payments conference. Head of Content Lucy Ingham shares her experiences from the trip.

In October, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to fly over to the US to represent FXC Intelligence at two separate conferences in the US: Money20/20 in Las Vegas, arguably the biggest payments conference in the world, and the Economics of Payments conference in Washington DC, an academic conference hosted by central banks. Happening over the course of a week, this was an incredibly busy trip crammed with networking opportunities, presentations and talks. Here’s what it was like.

The trip started out early on a Saturday, with a flight from Heathrow, first to Denver, Colorado, for a short stopover, before heading on to Las Vegas itself. I had departed from London on a particularly gloomy day, but the bright lights and sunny skies of Vegas greeted me before the plane had touched down – a welcome sight!

Saturday evening was fairly quiet. A quick visit to the ballroom of the Venetian – where Money20/20 is located – to pick up our passes, before meeting up with my colleagues for beer and tacos. I did get an up-close view of the Sphere, which is even wilder in person, as well as getting a chance to check out some of the race route for the Formula One. The sport was coming to town a few weeks after our visit, and large sections of road near the Strip were being overhauled in readiness for the event.

Sunday saw Money20/20 kick-off properly, so after an early brunch myself and my colleagues headed to the Venetian to check into our hotel rooms for the rest of our time in Vegas, and then get going with the event. The Venetian itself is truly an experience, fully recreating parts of Venice in theme park style, including a replica of the Rialto that you sedately move over on a travelator, as well as indoor canals complete with their own gondolas. Our hotel rooms were pretty special too, providing a restful stay with views of the Sphere, and of course the casino floors provide an experience you will only find in Vegas.

However, there wasn’t much time to relax. We had over 70 meetings booked between us over the next few days, as well as a variety of industry events and talks to attend. I got my bearings in the press room, before heading to my first meetings and planning the rest of my trip. Later we went to our first of several networking events, with a significant section of the restaurants and bars by the conference area taken over by payments companies hosting events for Money20/20.

The next day, things really kicked up a notch. The full show floor opened early and as I was due to speak later I began with a stage orientation, before catching some talks and visiting some of the hundreds of industry stands. What followed was a nerve-racking few hours before I went to the speaker lounge to get ready for my talk on Twitter’s payments strategy, which then went by in a whirlwind. My colleagues say it went well, though! After that we had more industry events in the evening, where I had the pleasure of connecting with some industry colleagues who I have previously only met on Zoom.

Onto Tuesday, and the day was crammed with meetings, mostly to interview CEOs of a variety of payment companies for our future content, as well as connecting with key marketing people at a number of organisations. The few gaps in between saw me do laps of the show floor to get everything in – I logged more than 20,000 steps each day of the conference – before more networking in the evening! 

With the event almost over we had a late finish, but that didn’t stop there being an early start the next day as I crammed a few more interviews in before my lunchtime flight. Those done, it was on to Washington DC for a turbulent flight and a late-evening arrival, after which I worked on some content for the company newsletter before crashing into bed.

Thursday started with a quick finalisation of the newsletter with my UK colleagues, before heading to the Federal Reserve for a very nice buffet breakfast (complete with US Treasury branded coffee cups!) and the start of the Economics of Payments conference.

After the whirlwind of Money20/20, this was a much more sedate affair, involving watching the presentation and discussion of research papers on a wide variety of topics across the payments space. However, the research was engaging and thought provoking, and the keynote, provided by Sir Jon Cunliffe just days before he stepped down from his role of Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, was fascinating. The Federal Reserve’s art collection was also an unexpected delight!

That evening saw the conference move to the Federal Reserve’s top floor for a poster presentation session and reception against the backdrop of Washington DC. I had the pleasure of presenting research based on our data, and was then given a visual tour of the various famous monuments of the city from the balcony by one of my DC-based colleagues. After that, we went for dinner at his favourite restaurant – an excellent French bistro. 

Onto Friday, and the final day of my trip. I was tired, but determined to pack in as much as I could before my flight that evening, which meant an early start to visit the Lincoln Memorial before another breakfast at the Federal Reserve and the second day of the conference. 

After a number of informative talks, I headed over to our DC office at lunchtime – my first time visiting – to catch up on some work and have a debrief. Then there was just enough time to see the White House and the surrounding area, before I jumped on the metro to the airport and began my journey home.