26th NextGen Payments & RegTech Forum Arrives in Austin, Texas

The 26th NextGen Payments & RegTech Forum is scheduled for November 10, 2026, in Austin, Texas. For fintech professionals, the summit represents a critical intersection of regulatory technology and payment infrastructure, addressing the shift toward real-time rails and agentic commerce within the US market's evolving compliance landscape.

What was announced

The 26th NextGen Payments & RegTech Forum will take place at the W Hotel in Austin, Texas. Positioned as a central summit for the US payments landscape, the event is designed for senior executives and regulators across banking, fintech, and payments infrastructure. The agenda focuses on the technical and regulatory hurdles of the next decade, specifically targeting real-time payments, fraud prevention, agentic commerce, open banking, and tokenised money.

The forum features a lineup of over 40 industry specialists. Confirmed speakers and participating organisations include:

• Anil Kumar, Senior Director Product Management at Visa; Vinay Nilakantan, Head of Product for North America at Wise; and Christine Cooper, Senior Director of Product Management at Ripple.
• Aaron Prater, Chief Operating Officer at Tri City National Bank; Mark Majeske, SVP Faster Payments at Alacriti; and Jairo Riveros, President, Americas at Paysend.
• Peter Papaioannou, Chief Product Officer at IXOPAY; Melissa Pottenger, VP, Enterprise Growth North America at Yuno; Amber Thetford, Chief Product Officer (Cards) at Onafriq; and Adi Iyer, GM, Financial Services at Fluz.
• Elizabeth Davidson at PNC and Haider Mannan at BIGTXN.

Other represented organisations include PayPal, Wells Fargo, Capital One, Charles Schwab, Truist, Regions Bank, Western Alliance Bank, Texas Capital, Third Coast Bank, Everbank, OneMain Financial, Global Payments, Ouro, VelaFi, Howden, and the American Bankers Association. The event is supported by sponsors Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, Splunk, and UMCA Technologies.

The companies involved

Splunk, a major player in cybersecurity and observability, operates as a subsidiary of Cisco following its high-profile acquisition. Its presence as a sponsor highlights the growing overlap between data analytics and financial security. QUBE Events, the organizer behind this series, has established a footprint in the global summit space, focusing on high-level networking for the financial sector. The forum also draws on the expertise of Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, which provides the data and tools necessary for anti-money laundering and third-party risk management. UMCA Technologies joins as a sponsor, representing the technical infrastructure layer of the industry. The event's speaker roster bridges the gap between traditional banking giants like Wells Fargo, Capital One, and PNC, and the disruptive fintech sector represented by Ripple, Wise, and Paysend. This mix suggests a market where legacy institutions and digital-native firms are increasingly forced to collaborate on shared standards for real-time rails and regulatory frameworks.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has closely followed the evolution of these industry gatherings and the technological shifts they address. We previously covered The 3rd Financial Innovation Forum - Payments & RegTech, which explored similar themes of leadership in the London market. Our reporting on The 3rd ICPAC Mediterranean Finance Summit 2024 and The Vision Forex Forum highlights the global nature of these regulatory discussions. Additionally, our coverage of the State of Security 2024 Report provided context on how generative AI is reshaping the cybersecurity landscape, a topic that directly informs the fraud prevention and agentic commerce discussions slated for the Austin forum.

What this means

The focus on "agentic commerce" and tokenised money suggests the US market is preparing for a shift beyond simple digital payments toward autonomous, AI-driven transaction environments. As real-time payment adoption accelerates through FedNow and RTP, the window for fraud detection shrinks, putting immense pressure on RegTech providers to deliver instantaneous compliance checks. This forum highlights a critical tension: the industry’s desire for frictionless, high-speed commerce versus the increasing complexity of cross-border regulations and financial crime. For legacy banks, the challenge is no longer just about updating hardware, but about integrating into an ecosystem where "money" is increasingly programmable and decentralized.