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Talking vs. Doing

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CEO of Nerdwallet, Tim Chen, Speaking to VC in San Francisco

Even though Home Depot moved on from its slogan of “Less Talking, More Doing” I’ve been thinking about that statement in the context of FinTech. There are so many conferences and places to network, it’s easy to spend too much time listening to experts versus doing the hard work of growing a business.

Reinforcing this, Level 39’s Head of Ecosystem Development, made this point at SIBOS last week in Singapore (see tweet).

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It’s not that events are a waste of time – it’s just critical to focus on what you do at them, i.e. focus on learning and giving back to partners and others.

As CoreVC‘s Kathleen Utech said, events like Money 20/20 are valuable in part for one-on-one conversations you set up, so make sure you plan them.

Buzz vs. Buzzkill

While there’s still a lot of buzz associated with financial services tech startups, with the latest news being the planned IPO for Square, a successful Los Angeles-based private investor in FinTech told me, “I’m sure a good percentage of startups with huge private valuations will never seen a liquidity event.”

We agreed that well-known startups are suspect, especially in some categories, e.g. robo advisors and online lenders. I’m bullish on the big names in the startup space, such as Prosper, but wonder about the second and third tier.

prosper

I recently sat down with Ron Suber of Prosper the other day and talked about innovation. I think the BillGuard deal was a very smart move. Prior to meeting him, I’d read the Stanford GSB Case Study on Prosper. It’s striking to see the similarities between today’s fascination with FinTech and the earlier euphoria over E-Loan in the period during the last dot-com boom.

I recommend the case study to see the difference between a good idea and execution, and the key role of regulators. Another important lesson is that VC’s are not the final answer: It’s up to you as the entrepreneur to make smart decisions.

Being Smart: Investing vs. Paying the Price Later

I saw Bill McKnight, Head of Product and Technology at RealtyMogul the other day. It was interesting to see the energy of the office, which was quite different from offices of places like Prosper, which have more of a tech company environment.

realtymogul The office atmosphere reflected the high percentage of employees who come from a real estate finance background, resulting in a mix between a tech company and a traditional lender.

Bill spoke to me about the importance of moving fast, yet being smart about investments in engineering to avoid “technical debt” later.

Transparency: Metrics that Matter

Another player in the real estate space within FinTech is Patch of Land. I met the CEO, Jason Fritton and CMO, AdaPia d’Errico, on a recent trip to Los Angeles. A somewhat earlier-stage startup than RealtyMogul, I was struck by the strengths of the team in terms of client and market focus.

I’ve also been impressed by Patch of Land’s ability to build a community through its social media efforts. Would be winners in FinTech would be smart to look at how AdaPia’s team uses SM to bolster growth.

Here’s some comparative metrics for Patch of Land (on top) vs. Lending Club. It’s clear from the SM metrics that the objectives are different, with one being more of a broadcast model vs. means for community engagement, but the figures are striking.

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Steady Growth

Tim Chen, CEO of NerdWallet spoke to a packed house of about three hundred members of the SF FinTech Meetup at its offices in San Francisco recently.

Personally, I was impressed by Tim’s modesty as he spoke of growing NerdWallet from tough early days when it made very little money. He won the crowd over with his timeline showing user growth matched by the SEO work to grow reach (building links and creating content).

Talking to others in the world of FinTech is useful, since I think each and every interaction with others can be a learning opportunity, but beware attending too many conferences on FinTech, when you could be building something.

IPO’s: I’ve Got Five on It

As I wrote last week in my first story on TheStreet.com, I’m bullish on the prospects of FinTech and wider tech industry’s recent and upcoming IPO’s, so I’ll shift focus my this week from marketplace lending to marketplaces for equity markets.

Last week, well known New York startup – and yet another success story from Fred Wilson‘s Flatiron Ventures – Etsy, went public. Although not a FinTech company, my interest in Etsy’s IPO is due to equity crowdfunding aspect of its IPO.

You may think it was just another IPO – just as OnDeck, the fintech company, went public in Dec. 2015. But, while my former colleagues at investment bank Morgan Stanley took Etsy public, what was unusual was a portion of the offering was reserved for crowdfunding – in keeping with the company’s focus on individuals, and it’s story of empowering individual artists and designers.

Beyond the company’s desire to do something with its public offering to reinforce its brand, it was pretty surprising to me that Morgan Stanley allowed individual investors without a relationship with Morgan Stanley to get shares.

In my experience, high profile anticipated IPO’s, such as last year’s Nimble Storage, are very hard to get access to as a regular retail investor. In fact, this is often touted as one of the benefits of doing business with a full-service broker.

Marketplace for IPO’s

What’s going on? Why would a very traditional investment bank, especially Morgan Stanley – with its core strategic wealth management business – be open to equity crowdfunding that in some ways undermines its business model?

As part of broader development of crowdfunding – from new products (e.g. Kickstarter), stakes in startups (e.g. CircleUp, AngelList), loans (e.g. Prosper, Lending Club) – equity crowdfunding is finally growing in acceptance and importance.

In fact, the biggest FinTech IPO of 2014 offered an equity crowdfunding component: While underwritten by Morgan Stanley, LendingClub offered crowdfunding using Fidelity Investments (where I began my career).

In the case of Etsy, last week, however, Morgan Stanley used not the market leader, LOYAL3, nor Fidelity, but rather its own in-house global stock plan services (GSPS) capabilities, along with its platform partner, IPREO.

(Morgan Stanley is a leader in stock plan services from when Citi’s contributed GSPS to MSSB joint venture; Colbert Narcisse, the long-time leader of the unit is a well-known innovator).

Bottom line: From the conversations I’ve had with those who in this industry, what’s driving this change is increasing market validation of the role and value of equity crowdfunding.

Another recent success in the context of the IPO market is this month’s underwriting of GoDaddy, where LOYAL3 played the role of partner to enable retail investors to participate in IPO.

LOYAL3 is a great company that’s a “marketplace” for direct investing and getting access to IPO’s. Like many leaders in FinTech, it’s based here in San Francisco at border of the Financial District and SoMa, near Prosper and Lending Club. It’s the industry leader in its space.

LOYAL3 signs up companies – from tech companies like Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook and Apple, to others ranging from Mattel, Hasbro, and McDonalds – so that individuals can buy their stock directly at low cost.

Direct investing in companies has been around for a while, however LOYAL3 brings innovations from its technology to make it easier to focusing on the “brand building” and relationship aspect of “investing in what you love,” its earlier tag line. It makes sense – an example of investor Peter Lynch’s rule to invest in what you know.

I expect to see LOYAL3 and others riding the wave of giving individuals access to low-cost investing and access to IPO’s in 2015 and beyond. Strategically, they might expand into the pre-IPO crowdfunding market (where CircleUp competes).

Regulation: Watch This Space

For those interested in this area, watch for the continued word on the final regulations and clarifications of rules for equity crowdfunding arising from the JOBS Act. Recently, in fact, I tweeted a link to California’s draft crowdfunding framework:

FinTech IPO’s to Watch in 2015

Although it’s really anyone’s guess as to which companies will go public, the legendary Morgan Stanley IPO team I saw at 2725 Sand Hill Road – including Andy Kearns, Dave Chen, Paul Kwan – will offer VC-backed tech firms advice on timing.

But based on public information I’ve read in the press, several of the big FinTech names are all considered strong contenders to go public in the next year, including Oportun (formerly Progresso Financiero), PayPal, Square and Stripe.

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Others, such as Ant Financial (Alibaba’s finance arm) and Avalara, a cloud-based solution for taxes may follow: the pipeline for FinTech IPO’s will be interesting to watch.

Since today is 4/20, I’ll wrap up by saying when it comes to IPO’s: I’ve Got Five on It. It’s not a lot of money, but the individual investor should be able to participate in this asset class, and hats off to those who make it happen.

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Payments Players In S.F.

Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), the global trade association for the payments industry, is holding its annual event here in San Francisco this week.

For many, the move from Las Vegas, the traditional location of the event, to S.F. represents a shift that emphasizes the growing role of technology, and in particular the impact of local FinTech startups such as Stripe and Square.

Below is a table of the Top 25 Companies in FinTech, ranked by employees in greater S.F. Bay area. Note how many are involved in payments (Visa, PayPal, Square, BlackHawk, Yapstone, Verifone, Stripe, Bill.com, Taulia, Revel & Boku).

Although ~ 5,000 people are in S.F. for this event, a small fraction of Dreamforce (annual Salesforce customer event), the key changes underway in payments landscape from Apple Pay to Samsung Pay give this event outsized importance.

The San Francisco Business Journal even has a cover story on payments this week, reinforcing that fact, and calling out interesting startups like PayNearMe (a panelist at last week’s SF FinTech Meetup run by PlanWise‘s Vincent Turner).

Although I’ve worked as a consultant with clients like MBNA (prior to its acquisition by Bank of America), launched co-branded cards and even worked on an ACH initiative, I am not a payments guru like Karen Webster of PYMNTS.com. But I follow FinTech and have a passion for innovation and the space, so will make a few observations.

First, legacy payments companies – and by this I refer to the broadest set of banks, merchant acquirers, aggregators/gateways, and payment networks – are not standing still, and should be watched just as carefully as startups.

Ben Horowitz, in talking about A16Z’s investment in TransferWise, said that “there’s not a lot of innovation coming from the banks.” Likewise, Foundation Capital predicted last week that banks will be disrupted by the new players in FinTech.

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I admire TransferWise and am a huge fan of Stripe, having had the opportunity to sit down with its COO, Billy Alvarado, and see its CTO, Greg Brock, speak at several FinTech events – but feel that A16Z and Foundation Capital may be overstating the case.

The fact is that not all the value added is not coming solely from the startups. Just look at a less cool, big legacy player in payments: Heartland Payments Systems.

The stock has doubled in the last few years, as its executed well and managed its costs while revenue continues to grow:

I would look to startups for their ability to be super fast, be focused on great products and use the latest tech stack, but don’t forget about value created elsewhere, e.g. among big corporates.

Beyond value, I’d also say innovation is not the sole domain of venture-backed startups. They are important, but I think the differences between venture funding and private equity are starting to narrow.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Andy Kessler argues “The Glory Days of Private Equity Are Over”. I disagree since companies like Betterment (see my recent interview with its co-founder) are receiving funding from both VC’s and private equity firms. Peter Christodoulo, a partner at Francisco Partners, sits on board of Betterment, Paylease and Paymetric.

Or consider First Data. It went private in a deal led by KKR. While it may seem to be a cost-cutting driven deal, consider that in recent years it began sharing ownership with employee-partners (like a VC funded business). And in terms of innovation, First Data is expected to make major new announcement here at TRANSACT 15. (I don’t know its president, Guy Chiarello, but met him when I was hired into his organization at Morgan Stanley where he’s still widely admired an an innovator, not a cost-cutter).

Likewise, Vantiv, one of the major sponsors of TRANSACT 15, went private several years ago in a deal with Boston-based Advent International, and continues to win awards and do well in terms of market share.

So, I think it’s clear startups and corporate players, plus VC’s and private equity all can create value and innovation. I look forward to announcements here at TRANSACT 15 in San Francisco, and will be sharing details on Twitter.

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The Future of Money

Unlike Money 20/20 in Las Vegas last month, this week’s Future of Money and Technology in San Francisco was more of a true Silicon Valley event with generally more technical attendees and venture-backed start up’s, and fewer speakers and sponsors from traditional/online retailers or the card industry.

There was more discussion, as one might expect, on startup’s, bitcoin and where things are going in next five to ten years.

Personally I was struck that group of panelists drew a complete blank when asked which startup or relative newcomer would transform financial services in the next ten year (excluding Stripe and Square). The field seems wide open to the experts.

Key Takeaways

Look for the Cloud to drive up adoption of long-standing tools like account aggregation and data integration, with leaders like Yodlee continuing their evolution into platforms for other banks and partners.

While getting less buzz, especially given the chatter about Apple Pay, expect a shift from mobile payments to wealth management and big data solutions, in terms of what’s important in the FinTech landscape in 2015 and beyond.

In next 12 months, look for the big banks to embrace Bitcoin, initially just as investors as they will wait for clearer direction from regulators before the use of any form of cryptocurrency within their core businesses.

The Silicon Valley (vs. NY and London-centric) FinTech ecosystem is far more focused on disruption within FS (vs. incremental improvements) or enabling better services from big players, through selling to them.

Intuit and Personal Capital

Starting the day off was a fireside chat with Bill Harris, CEO of Personal Capital and former CEO of Intuit, and Barry Saik, SVP of Intuit, who’s runs their consumer ecosystem including its Mint.com product.

Harris remarked on the power of information to drive behavior, noting that people who see their actual spending and how it fits with their goals through online or mobile apps actually spend about 15% less to achieve their goals.

He also sees opportunity in FinTech for start up’s and established players to better serve the needs of consumers, at all levels of income, much as Personal Capital meets the needs of the so-called “mass affluent” by providing better returns through lower costs and more efficient use of technology.

Saik pointed out that Millennials in particular, and young people in general, are less taken with banks and traditional provides of financial services – comparing their online and mobile experiences with other activities; they ask, “why is it so complex/slow/confusing” and seek FS providers who are as easy to use as Uber.

In other remarks, both panelists commented on the problem of good information and advice on financial services, and cited that as an opportunity. I’ve often wondered why Motley Fool, a company that I negotiated with earlier in my career when launching an online bank, didn’t capture more of this opportunity and go after other segments than their core market of self-directed investors. Perhaps there’s an opportunity out there, where Ed Tech meets FinTech?

The session concluded with Harris noting that Big Banks, in the US, vs. FinTech startups are examples of East Coast (hierarchical, annual planning focus) vs. West Coast (whiteboards, collegial atmosphere) business culture.

The API Ecosystem

Next up was an informative session on the API Ecosystem in Financial Services. Certainly from my experience working at Morgan Stanley and earlier with likes of Barclays, MBNA and CheckFree, I see the promise of greater integration and more innovation by means of the somewhat wonky (to the non-technical) API.

Although XML and web services fell short of their promises to transform, Restful API’s and the Cloud are enablers of new, consumer friendly services from established players, like Wells Fargo and Chase, plus start up’s like Simple (now part of BBVA) and Addepar.

The API Ecosystem demo started off with probably the highest energy moment of the whole day, with Justin Woo, a Developer Evangelist at PayPal. With great excitement, he showed how easy it to enable a site or app to accept cards, through adding a few simple lines of code calling the PayPal API.

Jeff Kaditz, CTO of Affirm, Max Levchin’s latest FinTech start up, spoke about the role of API’s in allowing people to break free from the traditional bank solutions that people increasing do not trust, he says.

Kaditz got a few laughs for making fun of Wells Fargo’s logo, which include the horse and stagecoach as an example of how rooted big banks are caught up in the past. Ironically, as I’ve tweeted on Nov. 19th, Wells Fargo’s Digital Channels is ranked among highest in the US, so I would disagree with him on that front.

But Affirm, like Simple or WealthFront, is a great example of a FinTech startup, with enormous ambition, strong backers, and a vision to “fix problems” using technology and a fresh approach, e.g. API centric solutions.

John Beatty, cofounder of Clover cited how Information Security approvals take months if not years at big banks. With an open API (unlike most banks), its platform for Android devices enabled POS solutions to reach the market quicker.

Christine Laredo of Yodlee, who moderated the API panel, also marked how FinTech start up investment was $3B for the last year — 3x the level in 2008.

Bitcoin, Stripe and Stellar

Although I couldn’t attend the entire panel, Sean Percival of 500 Startups joined moderator Mark Rogowsky of Forbes, and several other Bitcoin executives, including Sonny Singh of BitPay, and Jackson Palmer of Dogecoin.

The Bitcoin conversation continued with a panel on Stellar: Building a Common Financial Platform. Moderator Dan Rosen of Commerce Ventures and Joyce Kim of Stellar noted 30% of the session’s audience said they hold bitcoin, yet across the US and around the world, the percentage of much smaller.

Stellar, as a non-profit, was also represented by Jed McCaleb, who created Mt. Gox, the first bitcoin exchange, and Ripple, prior to founding Stellar.

Greg Brockman, CTO of Stripe, spoke about the relationship between Stripe and Stellar, noting that they invested $3M for 2M Stellars, a virtual currency, and work with Stellar since they share the vision of greater “inter-operability” between currencies, virtual and real currencies, and passion for the future of commerce. Brockman also noted that while Stripe is in beta with their bitcoin offering, he expected it to go live shortly.

Brockman talked about the frustrations with inter-operability, and the details that inhibit payment innovation, while Kim of Stellar highlighted innovations like the 1% inflation rate, the focus on a “freemium” model to encourage adoption.

Everyone on the panel agreed that the future of bitcoin and other crypocurrencies is just beginning. McCaleb noted he founded Stellar to address what he saw as issues with bitcoin, including mining that negatively impact the environment.

Although below the radar, just three months after their launch, I was impressed with Stellar’s vision, how clear Kim was about Stellar’s vision and mission, and the alignment of the panel on relatively “uncool” issues like protocols and messaging.

The panelists seemed unconcerned whether Stellars would be the next bitcoin – and came across as far more motivated to reduce payment complexity and inefficiency, and create a smarter, more transparent network for payments.

But with demand outstripping their forecast – and 4M wallets in use today (47% of whom did not hold another virtual currency like bitcoin), Stellar is worth watching both for its initial product as well as their long-term vision and set of partners in the FinTech space.

Angel & Corporate Venture Investments in FinTech

David Rose of NYC-based Gust, a rival to AngelList, and expert on Angel Investing gave a fact-filled talk on what it takes to be a good Angel investor, citing the need to have a long-term vision, people skills, self discipline, willingness to learn, self control, and desire to be at forefront of innovation (without the drawbacks of being an entrepreneur).

Rose cited statistics, such as the fact that 5 of 10 Angel-backed startups will fail and you will lose all of your money. Also, if you have the ability to back in 10 startups as an Angel, on average 2 of the 10 will return your money (by being acquired or bought for their IP). If you’re lucky or choose right, you will make money on 1-2 of the 10, but to achieve the 25% IRR goal for its investment class, you’ll need that 1 of 10 in your portfolio to achieve a 30x return.

Rose noted that angels are in it more for just the money – it’s also about keeping up with changes in the world, and making a difference. But he cautioned about being naïve about investing in startups, noting that the “J” curve where you invest in a money-losing venture, as most are, is not for the faint of heart.

Mike Sigal, CEO and founder of Cashflower, a FinTech startup based in S.F., led a similarly clear-eyed assessment of what corporate venture investment teams look for in FinTech. He noted that corporate VC is now 20% of FinTech investing.

Pete Casella spoke about how his team at JPMorgan Chase looks to make strategic investments of $5m+ in startups that can positively impact the Chase business, and the Bank requires a desk or P&L center sponsor the investment. While he said Chase seeks to “build its own” in key areas like mobile, UX and core business areas, Jaidev Shergill of Capital One ventures spoke about how the Bank seeks to learn, and learn where to invest in its infrastructure, by investing in non-strategic areas as well.

Casella also made a pointed comment that while he’s seen maybe 50 mobile wallet seeking financing in the last year, he sees the market for these services as maybe two or three providers at most.

Shergill cited the case of working with SnapLogic, a company founded by Gaurav Dhillon and backed by A16Z, as such a company, while Citi Ventures Ramneek Gupta gave example of Silvertail. He noted they helped foster a pilot, guide them to a commercial relationship, and how the firm was later acquired by RSA.

Overall the corporate VC’s came across as helpful, but cautious, not looking for a big return on their money, so probably easier to negotiate terms with vs. some other venture firms, but probably less motivated to help you win in the market, since they don’t need a 3-4x (let alone a 30X) return on their investment.

But all the VC’s mentioned, at least to some extent, how they brought value to the portfolio companies by providing startups with connectivity into the large financial services enterprise.

At Morgan Stanley, one role I held was precisely this kind of “navigation” role, helping to connect the Firm innovation (whether in the form of new business models, like Hired.com or approaches to data center virtualization, like Bracket Computing) so I can say first-hand that these kinds of assistance do matter.

What are key lessons for FinTech entrepreneurs? I would call out the panelists advice to “Do your due diligence” with any corporate VC. Avoid term sheets with ROFA’s. Ask good questions about what they will do for you, and be clear about what type of help you need in growing your business.

One comment from Casella was to stay away from mobile payments, saying he’s looked at 50 companies targeting this space, and sees the need for at most two that will be successful – although I think on a global basis, this will be a higher number.

And, as one VC said, stay clear of anyone who makes a lot of demands of your time, especially for PowerPoint presentations 😉

2014 Future of Money Startup Competition

Powered by the startup competition platform, younoodle, The Future of Money & Technology event announced several winners of its startup competition.

The winners were:

Linqto Personal Banker: a software development company specializing in Enterprise solutions for banking and educational verticals.
CrowdCurity: a marketplace for web security solutions
TrustingSocial: an innovator in credit scoring with social, web and telco data, to make lending faster, cheaper and friendlier.
Xignite: a provider of market data cloud solutions.
CUneXus: specialized sales & marketing systems to help lenders maximize the value of customer relationships.

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Despite Apple Pay Buzz, Don’t Forget Venmo

After hearing more than enough chatter about ApplePay, not to mention bitcoin (and the crucial distinction between Bitcoin and bit coin) at Money 20/20 last week, it may be time to shift gears to more of focus on the consumer.

I’m not targeting the same topics covered by magazines on the payments industry or banking technology. I’m inspired by sites, such as Jason Clampett’s Skift.com that covers travel in a unique way by blends an insiders view (i.e. what people who work in travel biz) with what consumers want to know.

OK, so what’s interesting to consumers? Well, although most of the press has covered more recent entrants (ok, one especially big new entrant based in Cupertino) to payments, I think there’s a lot to say about consumers and Venmo.

The service launched in 2009, and went live to the public about two and a half years later after shaking out in beta, seems to be tracking its projected growth rate. As reported by Business Insider this summer, Venmo is picking up traction:

So, what started with students in their early 20’s is shifting to other demographics and usage is evolving from peer-to-peer (“I owe you $20”) to wider retail use in places like Starbucks (see above).

Helen Jewitt, who looks at in trends in financial services for Wolf Ollins, a leading brand consultancy, says that “everyone is using Venmo in San Francisco” and making paying by check look like whipping out your BlackBerry 9900.

As San Francisco sometimes goes, so goes the Nation? Square and Google Wallet are in many ways ahead from a brand and reach perspective, but Venmo is social and has clearly established itself as one of the services to watch in mobile payments.

This isn’t the place to find the latest product reviews, but I recommend the excellent this year’s WSJ review of the category. Note: Square has been catching up this fall with features (such as pay by text, evolving last year’s payment innovation, where you could simply email someone and cc request@square.com to transfer money).

What’s telling is after PayPal acquired Braintree last year, instead of rebranding Braintree (or its Venmo product), PayPal continued to use the more credible Braintree brand – especially on billboards targeting developers in the Bay Area.

Venmo has been called the ‘killer app’ and has certainly given new life to PayPal, and that’s significant.

And for those who don’t follow FinTech closely, PayPal’s been adrift for years. In 2014, of course, PayPal announced its spin out from eBay – after years of saying it was strategic – which led to rumors of acquisition by everyone from Apple to Alibaba, although Reid Hoffman said at the Technonomy event this week that any Alibaba/PayPal tie up is unlikely.

From me it said a lot that on day the spin out, Stripe tweeted eBay now had an opportunity to improve its payments…..

There’s much to learn from the likes of Venmo and Stripe – a company I’ll cover in a separate post – but it’s worth listening to Stripe’s co-founder Patrick Collison’s predictions on the future of payments at Techonomy this week.

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Day One: Money 20/20

Well, the number of attendees at Money 20/20 is astonishing, as a first timer this year. From speaking to fellow attendees such as Tom Groenfeldt, who writes for Forbes.com, consensus seems to be Benjamin Lawsky, the regulator from New York State, who spoke about his work on developing frameworks for virtual currencies like Bitcoin, was the most interesting talk so far.

His views on the potential importance of Bitcoin match that of others in the Silicon Valley. In fact, one of the more interesting talks on Bitcoin recently was at Dreamforce when Marc Andreessen spoke with Emily Chang from Bloomberg West, saying to “short Apple Pay” and go long on Bitcoin — he’s a well-known investor in the Bitcoin ecosystem, in players like Coinbase.

Strikingly absent from Money 20/20 sponsorship list is Apple, or much in the form of direct reference to Apple Pay in agenda or keynotes, however as Bloomberg’s coverage of Money 20/20 stated aptly, this year the event might as well be called Apple Pay 20/20. Although the story in Bloomberg indicated Apple wasn’t present at the conference, and Apple declined comment, there are several attendees from Apple here in Las Vegas at the event, according to the the list of attendees from the organizer.

Although Apple may be less visible as an overt presence at Money 20/20, more striking is the absence of Square, at least from a key sponsorship perspective and in terms of the major keynotes and fireside chats.

We’ll be hearing from other players, such as Google Wallet (which is well represented at the event, and is a sponsor), of course.

And while mainstream media ran stories of Apple Pay being blocked (at least effectively, by disabling NFC on card readers) by retailers like CVS and Rite Aid, there were reports Apple Pay signed up 1m users in the first 27 hours, 3m in the first week. Lots of ink spilled over MCX and whether they are behind the payment wars. Sure to be a topic discussed this week.

Also, former head of Google Wallet, Osame Bedier, was added as a last minute keynote speaker for Monday’s session, to presumably speak about the launch of Poynt. Should be interesting, and looking forward to hearing reaction from the Google team on the ground here in Las Vegas, as well as other presenters at here at Money 20/20.

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