Lisbon and Las Vegas differ in many ways. So can an event with a huge established footprint in the US bring its magic to Europe?

In April this year I flew out to Vegas to get a sense of Fintech Meetup first hand, ahead of its inaugural Europe launch in October this year. In the opening remarks Louisa Hunter asked this very question. “Do we need another fintech event”?

The easy answer is probably not.

With Finovate, PAY360, IFGS, MPE, Money20/20, EBAday, Sibos, Open Banking Expo, FTT Fintech Festival, Web Summit, and FinTech Connect already in the calendar, you could feasibly say - that’s enough now.

But since I went to Vegas I’ve been thinking about the event a lot, and how it differed from what I’d seen before.

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An event that belonged to its community
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One of the things Fintech Meetup seems to understand really well is that the organiser doesn't need to be at the centre of every interaction.

Some of my favourite conversations happened over breakfast, before podcast recordings in hotel suites or at happy hours that sat alongside the official agenda. They were organised by sponsors and partners, but each had its own personality because the people hosting them were given the freedom to shape them however they wanted.

As an attendee, that made the week feel much bigger than one conference. Every event attracted a slightly different crowd, every host had their own style, and every conversation felt like a natural extension of the community rather than another branded networking session.

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Where doing business felt surprisingly... normal
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Bringing an American event to Europe will inevitably need a bit of cultural tailoring. But there was one part of the Vegas experience I'd happily import.

People were remarkably open about why they were there. If someone thought you'd enjoy meeting another person, the introduction happened there and then. If a group was heading somewhere after the conference, there was always room for one more.

I suspect the event design deserves more credit than I initially realised. The meetings programme is built around mutual introductions rather than unsolicited requests, which sets the tone before anyone even arrives.

I've been wondering why that felt so refreshing and I think it's because, at a lot of European events, networking can become something we all do while pretending we're there for something else. In Vegas there wasn't any performance. Meeting people was the point, and once everyone accepted that, the whole experience became much more relaxed.

With an agenda that respected the audience
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The content centred around the questions the industry is actually trying to answer: what AI changes for us, whether stable-coins are finally having their moment, how fraud is evolving, where regulation is heading. The people on stage came from very different organisations, which made for strong panels because there wasn't an expectation that every speaker had to represent their company's point of view.

I came away remembering arguments, examples and ideas rather than job titles. As someone who spends a lot of time moderating panels, that's probably the biggest compliment I could pay the programme.

So does Europe need another fintech conference, not really let’s be honest. 

But I think because of that, the launch of Fintech Meetup Europe is more exciting. It’s not stepping into an open space where anything they do will be considered a success.

It’s an incredibly competitive landscape, and what they launch HAS to be great if it’s going to compete at all.

The good news is they’ve got a brilliant existing model in place in Vegas, where introductions and networking are at the heart of the business model. It is called 'Fintech Meetup', after all.

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*Disclosure: I'm an ambassador for Fintech Meetup Europe. The views in this article are based on my own experience attending Fintech Meetup in Las Vegas.