Speaking at fintech conferences: Topics that programme committees accept

Programme committees at fintech conferences accept topics that show how regulation, payments or AI are actually implemented in the operations of a financial institution. A programme committee is the group of experts who read all talk proposals and build the programme from them. Many fintech conferences collect these proposals through a call for papers, a public call with a fixed deadline, while others fill their stages by invitation. This article explains the types of conference in financial services, the topics that get accepted and the route by which consultants and founders get in front of their future clients there.

What types of fintech conference are there?

Fintech conferences fall into four types: large international industry gatherings, conferences for banks and insurers, technology conferences with a dedicated finance programme, and conferences on supervision and compliance. For consultants they differ above all in how the programme is built and how many decision makers from financial institutions sit in the audience.

Large international gatherings such as Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam bring together banks, payment providers and investors from across Europe. Their programme comes from invitations to executives of large institutions, from partner packages for sponsors and from an open call that Money20/20 calls its Call for Content. According to the organiser, this call looks for original ideas that are useful to the audience and explicitly rules out product pitches as well as corporate presentations disguised as thought leadership.

Conferences for banks and insurers are often run by associations or by trade publishers that specialise in finance. They fill their programme by invitation more often than through an open call, and the audience consists of division heads and specialists from institutions with a concrete project ahead of them. Technology conferences with a finance programme, by contrast, usually advertise their slots publicly, and talks on payment infrastructure or fraud detection find a place there in front of an IT and engineering audience. At conferences on supervision and compliance, risk management and anti-money laundering dominate the programme.

Which topics do programme committees accept at fintech conferences?

At fintech conferences, programme committees accept topics that link a new obligation or a market problem with documented implementation experience. Audiences know general outlooks on the future of banking from the trade press, so committees usually reject them in the first round.

The strongest field is regulation in practice. DORA, the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act, has applied since 2025 and requires financial entities to manage their ICT risks end to end, meaning the risks arising from information and communication technology, including the service providers they depend on. MiCA, the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets, has been fully applicable since the end of 2024, and at the end of 2025 the European Parliament and the Council reached a political agreement on PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation PSR. Under the Instant Payments Regulation, payment providers in the euro area must offer instant credit transfers and check before each transfer whether the payee's name and IBAN match. For each of these obligations, conferences look for talks on how an institution implemented it and where it got stuck.

The second field is AI in financial institutions. In December 2025, BaFin, the German financial supervisor, published guidance on ICT risks in the use of AI by financial entities, and the EU AI Act classifies AI systems used to assess the creditworthiness of individuals as high-risk. Committees are therefore interested in reports on how an institution introduced a language model in customer service or credit assessment and documented it for the supervisor. Fraud prevention is in demand as well, as is embedded finance, meaning financial services built into other companies' software.

The first two figures come from the Deutsche Bundesbank study on payment behaviour in Germany in 2023. It shows the cash share of transactions falling from 58 per cent in 2021 to 51 per cent, with the debit card leading by turnover at 32 per cent. Shifts like these shape the programmes, because banks have to respond with new processes.

How does a programme committee recognise a fintech talk without a sales agenda?

A programme committee recognises a fintech talk without a sales agenda by the fact that the audience's problem sits at its centre and your own product appears at most as one example among several. At finance conferences, many partners pay a lot for visible slots, and the committee protects its editorial programme by keeping advertising out of the open slots.

The first signal is evidence. An abstract, the short description of the planned talk, convinces in this industry with a verifiable statement, such as how long a switch to instant payments took or the share of fraud cases detected before and after a new model. The second signal is perspective: committees prefer sessions in which a financial institution speaks itself or appears together with its consultant, because the audience then hears the user's view. Where the line between expert talk and advertising runs is described in Expert talk or sales pitch.

The third signal is approval. Banks and insurers coordinate their people's public appearances with communications and compliance, and case studies from client work need the client's consent or anonymisation that leaves no one identifiable. A committee that reads that the partner institution has already approved the joint talk sees less risk.

How do you get onto a fintech stage as a consultant or founder?

As a consultant or founder, you get onto a fintech stage by tailoring your topic to the perspective of each audience and submitting through two routes, open calls and direct approaches to the people responsible for the programme. A conference for savings banks looks for a talk on how an institution introduced payee verification, while a technology conference wants to hear the same project from an architecture perspective. Each of these versions needs its own title and its own examples.

Then there are the deadlines. In our analysis of 2,415 conferences publicly advertising speaking slots for 2026, the median gap between the close of a call and the start of the conference is 50 days. For conferences without a call, the timing of the approach decides, because organisers plan their programme months ahead. How a call for papers runs from submission to acceptance is explained in the call for papers guide.

Stage Starter takes on this work for you: we find the right calls, write the submission and submit it. That includes tailoring your topic to the stages where your clients sit, approaching organisers who fill their programme by invitation, and following up until a decision is made. You provide your expertise, clear approval with your institution or client and sign off the talk and abstracts. What the collaboration covers for financial services is set out in Speaker agency for financial service providers and fintechs.

For our clients' submissions we achieve up to 19 per cent acceptances per conference, while 5 per cent at most is usual in the market at this volume of submissions. This is based on 2,189 submitted abstracts, of which 94 of the 1,374 decided were accepted. The chance of at least one acceptance with n submissions at rate p is 1 − (1 − p)^n. For ten conferences, that gives about 40 per cent at 5 per cent and about 88 per cent at 19 per cent. No agency can guarantee an acceptance, because the programme committee decides.

What does a speaking slot at a fintech conference cost?

At most expert conferences, a slot through an open call costs you nothing beyond preparation and travel, while a slot bought as part of a sponsorship package quickly costs 10,000 euros or more for a single speaking slot. Bought slots are common at large industry gatherings, and these sessions are often not labelled as sponsored in the programme. Some organisers also charge selected speakers an attendance fee: Money20/20 Europe offers people selected through its Call for Content one of its lowest ticket rates, and speakers there pay for their own travel and hotel. When a bought slot pays off is covered in Sponsored talks and pay to speak.

Fintech conferences pay fees mainly for invited keynotes. At market rates, newcomers receive 1,000 to 3,000 euros per talk, established experts 3,000 to 6,000 euros and well-known keynote speakers 6,000 to 15,000 euros, while celebrities get 15,000 to 50,000 euros or more. For experts selling to financial institutions this fee carries little weight, because a single engagement won from a talk is worth more than any fee. How fees are made up is shown in the guide Speaker fees.