``By Campbell Shaw, VP Commercial, Valuedynamx
Money20/20 Europe returned to Amsterdam this year, bringing together leaders from across financial services, fintech, payments and commerce.
Across the event, two topics stood out: agentic commerce and stablecoins. Both point to an industry changing quickly, with new technology reshaping how money moves, how decisions are made and how customers interact with financial services brands.
For all the discussion around new infrastructure and AI-led experiences, the commercial challenge remains familiar: how do financial services brands keep customers active, engaged and choosing them when alternatives are easier to access than ever?
Customer choice has never been greater. People can open new accounts, switch products and move between providers with relatively little friction. But acquisition is not loyalty. Signing someone up is only the beginning. The harder task is giving customers a reason to keep using, choosing and trusting the same brand over time.
Five takeaways from this year’s event:
1. Agentic commerce is shifting the focus from insight to action
Agentic commerce was one of the clearest themes at Money20/20 Europe. The conversation has moved beyond using data simply to understand customers. The next phase is about using technology to help people make decisions, take action and complete journeys with less effort.
For financial services brands, this is a practical shift. If AI and agent-led experiences play a bigger role in how people discover, compare and buy, customer engagement needs to become more useful. It has to appear in the right context, at the right moment and in a way the customer can act on.
Rewards, benefits and offers have a clear role to play. A relevant offer should not sit outside the customer journey, waiting to be found. It should support the moment the customer is already in, whether they are booking travel, managing household spend, choosing which card to use or deciding where to shop.
Technology only matters when it helps customers get to something they actually value.
2. Stablecoins are changing the infrastructure conversation
Stablecoins were another major topic in Amsterdam, but the most important question for financial services brands is not only how the infrastructure develops. It is what faster, more flexible money movement means for customer expectations.
For many providers, the immediate focus will be infrastructure, regulation and adoption. That is understandable. But customers will judge these developments through the experience they create. They may not always know or care what is happening behind the scenes, but they will notice when payments become simpler, faster or easier to understand.
That does not mean every brand needs to build a stablecoin strategy overnight. It does mean providers should keep asking how changes in infrastructure can translate into better customer outcomes.
Innovation at the infrastructure level only matters when it improves the experience in front of the customer.
3. The strongest innovation is solving real use cases
One of the strengths of Money20/20 Europe is the breadth of innovation on show. But the strongest ideas are rarely the ones looking for a use case. They are the ones removing friction, creating value or changing behavior in a way the customer can feel.
That distinction matters. It is easy to be drawn into conversations about new technology without asking what it improves. Does it make something easier? Does it create more value? Does it remove friction? Does it give the customer a stronger reason to keep coming back?
The same applies to loyalty and rewards. A program does not become more valuable simply because it has more features. It becomes valuable when customers understand what is available to them and can use it in ways that fit naturally into how they spend, travel and live.
There is already a significant amount of merchant-funded value in the market, from discounts and cashback to products, services and experiences. Too often, customers either do not know it exists or have to work too hard to access it.
That is a missed opportunity. Not every reward needs to be complex or highly personalized. Sometimes the starting point is much simpler: giving customers an everyday opportunity to earn value when they spend.
From there, brands can build more targeted, behavior-led engagement around specific goals. That could include encouraging customers to use a card more often, try another product, book travel or return after a period of inactivity.
4. Loyalty needs to move customers through the relationship
Many financial services brands are highly effective at acquisition. The challenge is what happens afterwards.
A joining incentive might encourage someone to open an account, but it does not mean they will keep using it. Many customers now hold several cards, accounts and financial apps. They choose which one to use based on habit, convenience and the value they expect to receive.
That makes behavioral rewards more important. Brands need to think about the moments that move a customer from sign-up to regular usage, and from regular usage to a deeper, longer-term relationship.
That could mean rewarding a customer for making a card their default payment method, using it for a set number of transactions or engaging with another product within the bank. It could also mean identifying when usage has dropped and giving that customer a clear reason to return.
This is where loyalty can become more than a customer experience layer. Used well, it can be a practical tool for influencing behavior and supporting better commercial outcomes.
5. Partnerships are becoming a more important growth lever
Money20/20 Europe also reinforced the importance of partnerships across financial services.
Banks, fintechs, merchants and technology providers all bring something different. Banks bring trust, scale and customer relationships. Fintechs bring speed and new ways to solve specific problems. Merchants and partners bring the offers, rewards, products and experiences that can make those relationships more valuable day to day.
For financial services brands, the opportunity is not to deliver every type of value on their own. It is to build the right partner network around the customer.
That matters because customer needs are not one-size-fits-all. A small business owner, a frequent traveler, a student and a mortgage customer are all looking for different kinds of value. The opportunity is to use data and partnerships to make those experiences more relevant.
For merchants, these partnerships also create access to high-intent audiences. Rather than relying only on broad marketing campaigns, they can reach customers through trusted financial services channels, often at moments when those customers are already checking balances, moving money or making purchase decisions.
For financial services brands, the benefit is clear. Partnerships can help turn everyday interactions into moments of value, giving customers another reason to engage while creating more measurable outcomes for the business.
Looking ahead
Money20/20 Europe showed an industry moving quickly, with agentic commerce and stablecoins setting the tone for many of this year’s conversations.
But the fundamentals have not changed. Customers still need a reason to choose one provider over another. They need to understand what is available to them. And the experience needs to feel relevant to how they live, spend and make decisions.
For financial services brands, the opportunity is to look beyond the core product and think more carefully about the relationship around it. Rewards, benefits and partner-led experiences can help build that relationship, but only when they are easy to access, commercially measurable and genuinely useful.
There is already significant value across the commerce ecosystem. The next challenge is making sure customers can see it, understand it and use it.
If you would like to discuss how rewards, benefits and partner-led engagement can help create more value for your customers, get in touch:
