If you have ever walked the floor of a major fintech conference and felt like you were dodging sales pitches instead of learning something useful, you are not alone. That frustration is precisely what gave rise to Fintech NerdCon, an event built on the radical idea that the best conversations in fintech happen between practitioners, not pitch decks. After a sold-out debut in Miami in November 2025, Fintech NerdCon returns to the San Diego Convention Center on November 1920, 2026, with a clearer mission than ever: bring operators, builders, engineers, and risk professionals into a room and let them actually talk to each other. This guide breaks down what Fintech NerdCon is, why it matters in a crowded conference landscape, who should attend, and how to get the most out of two days designed around real, unscripted conversation.
What Is Fintech NerdCon?
Fintech NerdCon is a two-day fintech community event created by Simon Taylor (founder of the widely read Fintech Brainfood newsletter) and a content council of seasoned industry operators. The concept is deliberately contrarian: no sales booths, no scheduled buyer-seller meetings, no exhibitor halls dressed up as content tracks. Instead, the format prioritizes hallway debates, hands-on workshops, roundtables, live podcasts, and curated keynotes.
The first edition took place at Mana Wynwood in Miami in November 2025 and drew more than 1,000 curated fintech operators, 100+ speakers, 20+ roundtables, and 25+ live podcasts. The 2026 edition moves to San Diego and expands on the same operator-first philosophy.
The “By Operators, For Operators” Philosophy
The defining tagline of Fintech NerdCon is “by operators, for operators.” That is not marketing language; it is a structural choice that shapes everything from speaker selection to room layout. Product managers can pressure-test their roadmaps with peers building similar things. Engineers can debate architecture without a sales engineer hovering. Risk and compliance leaders can stress-test their frameworks in roundtables with people who have actually shipped them. The event was inspired by an observation Simon Taylor has often shared: fintech professionals tend to gather in hotel lobbies more than on conference show floors, because what they really want is each other’s company.
Key Details: Dates, Location, and Format
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Dates | November 19–20, 2026 |
| Venue | San Diego Convention Center, California |
| Format | Two-day in-person event |
| Founder | Simon Taylor (Fintech Brainfood) |
| Inaugural year | 2025 (Mana Wynwood, Miami) |
| Official website | fintechnerdcon.com |
San Diego is a deliberate choice. The organizers have publicly noted they wanted to avoid the Las Vegas Strip and the usual mega-conference circuit, opting instead for a city that lends itself to smaller dinners, walkable networking, and a more relaxed atmosphere between sessions.
What Happens at Fintech NerdCon
Live Podcasts and Keynotes
A signature element of NerdCon is its live podcast stage. Rather than packaging conversations into polished panels, the event records popular fintech podcasts in front of an audience, then publishes them afterward. Keynotes feature operators who have built and scaled, and sometimes failed at, the industry’s hardest problems. The 2025 lineup included Immad Akhund (co-founder and CEO of Mercury), Cristina Junqueira (co-founder of Nubank), and Michael Hsu (former Acting Comptroller of the Currency), giving a sense of the speaker caliber attendees can expect in 2026.
Roundtables and Workshops
Roundtables are where the operator-first format really earns its name. Sessions are designed to be small, topic-specific, and participatory. Topics in the inaugural year ranged from fraud and risk decisioning to sponsor-bank compliance, AI in financial services, real-time payments, and product-led growth in regulated environments. Workshops are hands-on, often led by practitioners walking through a real problem they have solved at their own company.
Immersive Activations and Networking
Instead of booths, sponsors create “activations”, experiences such as live fraud-attack demos, interactive exhibits, or themed lounges. The deliberate restriction here is no pitch tables. Networking is supported through private dinners, daily happy hours, and unstructured time built into the agenda. The point is to let connections happen organically rather than forcing them through a scheduled meetings tool.
Who Should Attend Fintech NerdCon
Product Managers and Engineers
If you build fintech products, particularly in payments, lending, banking-as-a-service, or risk infrastructure — NerdCon is calibrated for you. The conversations tend to be deeply technical and assume baseline fluency in things like reconciliation, ledgering, KYC/KYB, and risk orchestration.
Risk, Fraud, and Compliance Professionals
The 2025 event leaned heavily into fraud, AML, and risk topics, and that focus continues. Practitioners get to compare frameworks, debate vendor selection, and trade lessons learned without a sales handler in the room. Sardine, a fraud and risk platform, hosted live demos of modern fraud attacks at the inaugural event — illustrative of the technical depth on offer.
Founders and Operators at Growth-Stage Fintechs
The 2025 attendee list included companies like Mercury, Nubank, Chime, Plaid, Stripe, Adyen, Brex, SoFi, Marqeta, Cash App, Coinbase, Circle, Mastercard, Visa, Capital One, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, and dozens of community banks and sponsor banks — a mix that signals the event’s appeal across startup, scale-up, and incumbent worlds.
Investors Focused on Fintech
VCs attend, but the format does not lend itself to deal-sourcing in the traditional booth-walking sense. Investors who get the most out of NerdCon are those genuinely curious about the operational realities behind the companies in their pipeline.
Why Fintech NerdCon Stands Apart From Other Conferences
The fintech conference calendar is crowded. Money 20/20, Finovate, Fintech Meetup, and a dozen regional events all compete for the same calendars and budgets. Fintech NerdCon’s differentiation rests on three concrete choices:
It deliberately limits sales activity. Sponsors agree to creative activations rather than booth scans, which changes the energy on the floor. It uses a content council of practicing operators to curate sessions rather than relying on a sponsor-driven agenda. And it caps the experience at a scale where genuine networking remains possible, rather than chasing maximum headcount.
Whether that trade-off is worth it depends on your goals. If you are looking to demo to thousands of prospects, this is the wrong event. If you are looking to learn from people doing the same job you are doing, it is one of the few events explicitly designed around that.
How to Get the Most Out of Fintech NerdCon
A few practical suggestions for first-time attendees:
Plan around the roundtables, not just the keynotes. The roundtable format is where the deepest conversations happen, and slots can fill up. Review the agenda the week before and prioritize two or three sessions where you can contribute as well as listen. Build in time for the unstructured moments, happy hours, lobby conversations, and private dinners. The organizers have repeatedly emphasized that the “hallway track” is the real product. Bring specific questions rather than general curiosity. Operators respond well to a colleague asking how they solved a particular problem; less well to “tell me about your stack.” And consider applying to speak or run a session, the call for nerds is genuinely open, and contributors tend to get more from the event than passive attendees.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is Fintech NerdCon 2026?
Fintech NerdCon 2026 takes place November 19–20, 2026, at the San Diego Convention Center in California.
Who runs Fintech NerdCon?
The event is organized by Simon Taylor, founder of the Fintech Brainfood newsletter, along with a content council of fintech operators who curate sessions and speakers.
Where was the first Fintech NerdCon held?
The inaugural Fintech NerdCon was held at Mana Wynwood in Miami on November 19–20, 2025, drawing more than 1,000 attendees, 100+ speakers, 20+ roundtables, and 25+ live podcasts.
How is Fintech NerdCon different from Money 20/20 or Fintech Meetup?
Fintech NerdCon does not have a traditional exhibitor hall, sales booths, or scheduled buyer-seller meetings. The format centers on operator-led roundtables, workshops, live podcasts, and unstructured networking, with sponsors creating experiences rather than running pitch tables.
Who should attend Fintech NerdCon?
The event is designed for fintech operators: product managers, engineers, risk and compliance professionals, founders, and operators at fintechs, banks, and infrastructure providers. Investors and analysts attend as well, but the format favors practitioners over deal-makers.
How can I buy tickets to Fintech NerdCon 2026?
Tickets are sold through the official website at fintechnerdcon.com. Sponsorship and speaker applications are also available through the site.
Is Fintech NerdCon worth attending if I’m not already a fintech insider?
If you are early in your fintech career, the event can be a fast way to learn from senior operators — but the conversations assume baseline fluency in fintech concepts. Reviewing recent Fintech Brainfood newsletters and the 2025 session topics beforehand will help you get more out of the agenda.
About this article:
Information in this guide is based on the official Fintech NerdCon website, public statements by organizers, and reporting from the November 2025 inaugural event in Miami. Confirm the latest agenda, speaker list, and ticket pricing directly at fintechnerdcon.com before making travel plans.
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