7 fintech conferences in 2026 you can't afford to miss
The 2026 fintech conference calendar is packed. Money 20/20, Finovate, Singapore Fintech Festival, dozens of events competing for your attention and travel budget. But if you're building lending infrastructure, modernizing payments, or operating in digital banking, you can't attend everything.
These seven conferences aren't just the biggest names on the circuit. They're redefining what fintech events can be, from invite-only gatherings in the Utah desert to massive Vegas showcases where the entire ecosystem converges. Each offers something you won't find elsewhere, whether that's unfiltered technical depth, structured deal-making, or access to the infrastructure layer that makes everything else possible.
Here's where the most valuable conversations in fintech are happening in 2026.
TLDR:
- Salt Flats Summit
- Money 20/20 USA
- Fintech Nerdcon
- Fintech Meetup
- Visa Payments Forum
- Stripe Sessions
- Acquire or Be Acquired (AOBA)
Salt Flats Summit
The exclusive peak
When & where: September 16-18, 2026 | Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah
LoanPro's invite-only summit takes place on the Bonneville Salt Flats - a 30,000-acre expanse of white salt desert where land speed records are set and the horizon stretches endlessly in every direction. This isn't a hotel ballroom in Vegas. It's one of the most surreal landscapes on earth, and that's the point. The setting forces a different kind of conversation. No distractions, no vendor booths, no rushing between sessions. Just 500 lending tech leaders solving real operational problems in a place that makes you think differently about what's possible.
Best for: Founders, CTOs, and product leaders of leading lending and credit providers who want to go deeper than surface-level networking. If you're evaluating lending infrastructure or solving operational challenges, this is where your peers are.
Interested in attending? Salt Flats Summit is invite-only. Reach out to request a seat →
Money 20/20 USA
The ecosystem giant
When & where: October 18-21, 2026 | Las Vegas, Nevada
The undisputed heavyweight of fintech conferences. Over 13,000 attendees, 500+ speakers, massive expo floor with every major bank, payment network, and fintech unicorn showcasing products. If you need to understand where the entire industry is heading (not just your niche), this is non-negotiable. The scale means you'll run into the exact person you've been trying to reach - whether that's on the show floor, in a session, or at one of the countless side events. Yes, it's overwhelming. That's also the point.
Best for: Anyone who needs to see the full fintech landscape, especially for business development, partnerships, and understanding how your vertical fits into broader industry shifts.
Fintech Nerdcon
For operators, by operators
When & where: November 18-20, 2026 | San Diego, California
Built by builders, for builders. With around 1,200 people, Nerdcon skips the sales pitches and panel platitudes to deliver content that goes a layer deeper than the soundbite. You'll get operators who've shipped, scaled, and sometimes spectacularly failed. The event is full of people who actually get the technical problems you're dealing with every day. Founders and senior leaders come to talk about what’s working, what’s not working, make meaningful connections, and get better at their craft.
Best for: Technical co-founders, engineering leaders, and product managers who want to learn from peers actually building fintech products.
Fintech Meetup
The networking machine
When & where: March 30 - April 1, 2026 | Las Vegas, Nevada
Structured 1-on-1 meetings replace the chaos of trade show floors. The algorithm matches you with exactly who you need to meet. No wandering, no wasted conversations. You've got 4,000 attendees, but you'll have meaningful conversations with maybe 30 of them. That's the format working as designed. If you've ever burned three days at a conference without a single actionable outcome, Meetup's approach delivers more ROI per hour than any other event.
Best for: Anyone actively pursuing partnerships, fundraising, or vendor relationships. If you have a specific business goal for Q2 2026, Meetup's format gets you there faster.
Visa Payments Forum
The infrastructure insider
When & where: June 9-11, 2026 | San Francisco, California
Bringing together 2,000 payment and infrastructure leaders, this is where you learn how the actual rails work. The consumer-facing features get plenty of attention elsewhere. This event focuses on the infrastructure layer that makes everything else possible. If your product touches payments at all, understanding what Visa and the broader payments ecosystem are building gives you strategic context you can't get anywhere else. You're not just watching demos. You're seeing the roadmap of the networks themselves.
Best for: Product leaders, payment strategists, and anyone building on payment infrastructure. Especially valuable if you're in embedded payments or building financial products that depend on card networks.
Stripe Sessions
The product visionary hub
When & where: April 29-30, 2026 | San Francisco, California
With roughly 6,000 developers and product builders in attendance, Stripe shows you where commerce and payments are heading before anyone else does. The developer-first approach means you're seeing the future of API-driven finance through actual product decisions, not marketing slides. Sessions reveals how the best product teams in fintech are thinking about developer experience, platform design, and building financial features into non-financial products. If you're building anything internet-native, this is your playbook.
Best for: Product builders, developers, and founders in commerce, SaaS, or embedded finance. Especially relevant if you care about API design or building financial features into software products.
Acquire or Be Acquired (AOBA)
The M&A roundtable
When & where: February 1-3, 2026 | Phoenix, Arizona
The banking M&A conference for executives navigating consolidation in community banks and credit unions. This event focuses on the institutions that fintech platforms serve, not fintech startups themselves. Here's why it matters: this is where your banking customers and prospects are. Around 1,500 CFOs, CEOs, and COOs from community banks and credit unions (the people you've been trying to get meetings with) are all in one place. You're not going for the M&A content. You're going because this is your best shot at face time with financial institution decision-makers.
Best for: Executives at lending platforms and banking tech vendors whose customers are community banks and credit unions. Also valuable for anyone tracking consolidation trends that will reshape the industry.
Planning your conference calendar
These seven conferences represent different strategic priorities. Some give you the full ecosystem view, others go deep on technical implementation, and a few are designed specifically for deal-making. You can't attend everything, so make sure you hit the ones you can't afford to miss.
Here's how these conferences map across 2026:
Use this to plan your travel calendar and budget. Pick the events that align with what you're actually trying to accomplish in 2026, not just what's on everyone else's calendar.
Interested in Salt Flats Summit? Our September event is invite-only, but we'd love to hear from lending tech leaders and innovators. Reach out to learn more about attendance →
