Rails, regulation and real-world AI at Money 20/20 day 2

The corridors of the RAI Centre buzzed with a singular, resonant theme on Day 2 of Money 20/20 Europe: “If the rails don’t hold, nothing else matters.” From in-house tech stacks to the plumbing of new payment methods and the very fabric of digital money, discussions underscored that innovation in finance must be built upon a bedrock of resilient infrastructure, iron-clad compliance, and increasingly, intelligent automation that delivers tangible value.

For finance and cybersecurity leaders, the message was clear: the future belongs to those who master the fundamentals before chasing the fleeting allure of the next big thing.

Monzo’s mantra: Mission, moat, and meticulous infrastructure

The day kicked off with a compelling fireside chat featuring Monzo CEO TS Anil, who detailed why the UK banking powerhouse insists on owning its entire tech stack. Celebrating 12 million customers and £1.2 billion in revenue, Anil emphasized that their self-built microservices architecture provided crucial resilience, citing “five-nine uptime” (£16.6 billion in deposits handled with only a 35-second blip in a year). “When customers trust you with their money, every second offline costs more than any feature you could ship,” Anil stated, a sentiment that resonated deeply.

Monzo’s “Stand-In” feature, which automatically reroutes transactions during outages, exemplifies their belief that infrastructure is mission-critical. This focus, Anil argued, allowed Monzo to remain operational when legacy system-reliant incumbents faced downtime. Beyond tech, Monzo’s “mission-driven product DNA” focuses on reducing customer anxiety and offering genuine choice, with features like customizable gambling blocks and real-time budgeting serving as trust anchors rather than mere revenue drivers. “You don’t win by shouting louder—you win by solving real problems better than anyone else,” Anil concluded.

Payments reality: Subscriptions, merchant needs, and consumer habits

A panel featuring Eric Tak (ECB/ING), Martina Weimert (EPI), and Matt Wegner (Adobe), chaired by PPRO’s Motie Bring, delivered a potent reality check on new payment methods. Tak, instrumental in launching iDEAL, revealed that initial consumer research was lukewarm, yet the service exploded due to its utility.

The lesson: measure behavior, not just opinions.

Wegner of Adobe stressed the merchant-pull imperative, particularly for subscription-based models. “For us, recurring B2C subscriptions are bread and butter. If a new method can’t handle automated, ten-million-customer pulls, it’s dead on arrival,” he warned, advising to design rails for subscriptions first. Weimert (EPI) highlighted “use-case shortcuts” for scaling Local Payment Methods (LPMs), suggesting that embedding payments in high-frequency daily activities like transit or streaming creates instant relevance. PPRO’s Motie Bring cautioned against fragmentation, emphasizing that “simplicity still wins” in a landscape riesgo de confundir al usuario final (at risk of confusing the end-user).

Digital money’s new frontiers

The afternoon sessions turned to the evolving world of digital money, with a clear message: stablecoins are maturing, CBDCs are on the horizon, and compliance must be an integral part of the infrastructure. Julian Sawyer of Zodia Custody asserted that stablecoins have transitioned from a fringe concept to a mainstream tool for efficient cross-border commercial treasury flows, asking, “If I can pay a supplier in Amsterdam USDC, and it lands in Singapore in seconds with 5 bps of spread, why go through SWIFT and 75 bps of fees?”

Patrick Agopian of Credit Agricole described the digital euro as a “work in progress,” but noted the ECB is already designing an account-to-account acceptance layer. Crucially, all panelists agreed that “programmable tokens” must have KYC/AML checks built in from the outset, with Agopian highlighting ECB working groups dedicated to codifying on-chain AML rules before launch. This proactive stance reflects a growing understanding that regulatory gates are as important as market share. Similarly, Zeeshan Uppal of XBD Group, in a separate discussion, emphasized their focus on “bank-grade infrastructure powered by stablecoins,” built for businesses needing speed and regulatory alignment across fiat and digital rails, bridging TradFi with “traceability, auditability, and trust.”

Agentic AI & intelligent automation

Artificial Intelligence, particularly agentic AI, emerged as a dominant theme, moving beyond theoretical discussions to tangible applications and measurable benefits. Juan Jose Lopez Murphy, Global Head of Data Science & AI at Globant, provided a practical framework, defining agentic AI through six components: multimodal inputs, tool usage, reasoning/planning, learning adaptability, knowledge management, and communication. He showcased use cases where AI agents boosted software development efficiency by up to 40% and aided in migrating banking teller apps with 30% fewer resources.

This framework found a powerful real-world example in Liberis’ Ada, an in-house AI underwriting agent. As highlighted by Zihan Lyu and evident in various discussions, Ada is designed to handle complex credit decisions with speed, fairness, and explainability. Unlike conventional models, Ada blends real-time data ingestion with planning, reasoning, and a human feedback loop, embodying many traits of an agentic system. With Liberis already automating over 85% of financing decisions, Ada represents a significant step towards more autonomous and accountable underwriting in embedded finance – a system that can think and act, not just process.

Elsewhere, IFX Payments CEO Will Marwick and COO Adam Dowling shared how integrating Intrepid Fox’s AI engine cut false positives in compliance by 40% and halved manual transaction reviews. “Clients don’t care if AI sits backstage; they care that we spot suspicious flows faster and at lower cost,” Marwick noted. Bahadir Yilmaz, Chief Analytics Officer at ING, described their journey to enterprise-wide AI trust, with AI-driven mortgage advice cutting approval times by 50% and lifting closure rates by 17%. However, he, like Carlo Bruno of Adyen and Georgios Kolovos of NVIDIA in a separate session, stressed that “data readiness remains a bottleneck,” and that foundational work like parsing scheme manuals with LLMs or improving monitoring and tokenization often unlocks more value than chasing flashy applications.

Compliance as a differentiator in an instant world

The imperative for robust compliance was further amplified by Rocio Suarez, Financial Crime Compliance Director (EMEA) at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. She delivered a stark warning: instant, digital payments significantly increase AML/CTF risk. With PSD3 mandating sub-five-second euro transfers 24/7, the ability to screen inbound credit transfers in real-time is no longer a luxury but a necessity—one that many institutions currently lack. Suarez advocated for “perpetual KYC,” a unified, always-on view of each customer, as non-negotiable for combating sophisticated financial crime, noting that AI-driven screening can reduce false positives by up to 50% but must be “auditable, adaptable, and data-governed.”

This sentiment was echoed by IFX Payments, who view compliance not as a blocker, but as their business model. Their growth, including the pending acquisition of what appears to be Argenx PLC (referred to as Gen X PLC in one source), which will double their headcount and expand regulatory reach, is built on this foundation of trust and licensed capability. Similarly, Michael Levens of Delta Capita discussed their AI risk assessment toolkit for EU AI Act compliance, revealing that a significant majority of banks surveyed would currently fail, prompting urgent data governance projects.

As Day 2 concluded, the overarching narrative was one of pragmatic innovation. Whether it’s Monzo’s full-stack ownership, Adobe’s subscription-first payment strategy, the regulated rise of stablecoins, or the intelligent automation driven by AI like Liberis’ Ada, the financial industry is increasingly focused on building resilient, compliant, and efficient systems that deliver real, measurable value. The flashy demos are taking a backseat to the foundational work required to truly transform finance.

Bobsguide continues its live coverage from Money 20/20 Europe. Stay tuned for more insights.