Thursday, Apr 03, 2025 – Friday, Apr 04, 2025
8:00 am PDT
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Lam-Larsen Fintech Initiative at San Francisco State University, and the Center for Analytical Finance at the University of California at Santa Cruz are jointly hosting a Fintech Conference on April 3-4, 2025.
The rapid advance of financial technology (fintech) is reshaping the global financial ecosystem. Innovation in digital infrastructure, tokenization, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, is revolutionizing how financial services are delivered. These advances create opportunities for expanding access to banking services and market efficiency but also create new risks within the banking system.
This conference, the fourth co-hosted by the organizing institutions, seeks to convene leading academics, industry experts, and regulators for a robust exchange of perspectives on opportunities and challenges posed by activities involving innovative technologies. The primary goal is to bridge the gap between innovation and regulation, fostering collaboration and understanding on the cutting-edge trends shaping the fintech landscape. By creating a platform for dialogue, we aim to explore how innovation can thrive in a regulated environment while ensuring a safe and sound financial system.
Through a mix of academic paper presentations and panel discussions, this conference aims to shape the future of fintech by encouraging evidence-based insights, policy recommendations, and practical solutions.
Agenda
Day 1: Thursday, April 3, 2025
8:15 – 9:15 am
Breakfast
9:15 – 9:20 am
Welcome and Announcements
9:20 – 9:30 am
Opening Remarks by Eugene Sivadas, Dean, Lam Family College of Business, San Francisco State University
½ Day Bank-Fintech Partnerships
9:30 – 10:15 am
Bank-Fintech Partnership Landscape
This panel reviews key trends in the landscape of bank-fintech partnerships, evolving partnership models to support innovation, and potential risks and risk mitigants.
Moderator: Emily Greenwald, Senior Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Panelists:
- Phil Goldfeder, CEO, American Fintech Council
- Adam Shapiro, Partner, Klaros Group
- Michael Emancipator, Senior Vice President and Senior Regulatory Counsel, Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA)
10:15 – 10:45 am
Break and Networking
10:45 – 11:45 am
Old Payments, New Rails: What’s New in Digital Payments
In this panel, payment leaders will decode the future of payments such as digital wallets, pay-by-bank, and real-time payments. The session will highlight the role of technological innovation in reshaping the payments industry, new players and products, and potential impacts on financial institutions, businesses and consumers.
Moderator: Margaret Riley, Senior Vice President, Federal Reserve Financial Services
Panelists:
- Stephany Kirkpatrick, Founder & CEO of Orum
- John Pitts, Head of Industry Relations and Digital Safety, Plaid
- Harris Qureshi, Associate Director, Flex
11:45 – 12:00 pm
Center for Analytical Finance (CAFIN), University of California Santa Cruz Remarks by:
- Sameet Mehta, Granite Hill Partners and CAFIN Advisory Board Chair
- Galina Hale, Professor of Economics, UCSC and Co-Director, CAFIN
- Nirvikar Singh, Distinguished Professor of Economics, UCSC and Co-Director, CAFIN
12:00 – 1:00 pm
Lunch
½ Day Digital Assets/DLT
1:00 – 1:45 pm
Tokenization in Financial Markets
This panel will be a discussion on tokenization infrastructure, including potential benefits and risks, whether/how interoperability could be achieved between traditional and new financial infrastructures, as well as barriers and catalysts ahead.
Moderator: Hampton Finer, Head of Large Institution Supervision, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Panelists:
- Cuy Sheffield, Vice President, Crypto, Visa
- Scott Bauguess, Head of Regulatory Policy, Coinbase
- Alan Cohn, Partner, Steptoe
1:45 – 2:15 pm
Break and Networking
2:15 – 3:00 pm
Operational Resilience of DLT Networks
This panel discusses various operational strengths and challenges associated with the decentralized nature of DLT networks, and resilience considerations as banks explore the technology.
Moderator: Kavita Jain, Associate Director, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
Panelists:
- Christian Adam, CISO Digital Assets, Bank of New York
- David Mazieres, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University
- Suresh Shetty, CTO, Kinexys by J.P. Morgan
3:00 – 3:15 pm
Break and Networking
3:15 – 5:00 pm
Academic Paper Sessions Presentations
Moderator: Todd Feldman, Professor of Finance, San Francisco State University
“Decentralization through Tokenization” (Sockin & Xiong, 2023)
The paper provides insights on tokenization as a mechanism for platform governance and explores the role of utility tokens in fostering decentralized decision-making.
Presenter: Michael Sockin, Assistant Professor of Finance, The University of Texas at Austin
“Aggregate Confusion in Crypto Market Data” (Schwenkler, Shah, and Yang, 2025)
This paper explores perspective highlights the pervasive data quality issues in crypto market data aggregation, emphasizing the risks of relying on inconsistent information for financial decision-making.
Presenter: Gustavo Schwenkler, Associate Professor of Finance, Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business
“Beneath the Crypto Currents: The Hidden Effect of Crypto Whales” (Chernoff and Jagtiani, 2025)
This paper examines how large Ethereum holders (whales) strategically navigate market volatility, often to the detriment of smaller, retail investors (minnows).
Presenter: Alan Chernoff, Professor of Economics, The College of New Jersey
5:00 – 6:50 pm
Reception
Day 2: Friday, April 4, 2025
½ Day Regulation and Fintech Innovation
8:30 – 9:00 am
Breakfast
9:00 – 9:30 am
Opening Remarks by Governor Michael S. Barr, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Followed by a Q&A facilitated by Kristin LaPorte, Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
9:30 – 10:30 am
Keynote by Brandon Milhorn, President and CEO, Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS)
Followed by Fireside Chat with Niel Willardson, Executive Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
This session will discuss community banks’ adoption of innovative technologies, the benefits and barriers to such adoption, and the role of regulators in supporting these efforts.
10:30 – 11:00 am
Break and Networking
11:00 – 11:30 am
International Developments in Tokenization
This session explores various approaches to tokenization overseas and some lessons learned. The discussion will also address challenges of interoperability across various native digital assets and payment rails.
Speaker: Jon Frost, Head of Innovation and the Digital Economy, Monetary and Economic Department, Bank for International Settlements
Moderator: Erin English, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
11:30 – 12:15 pm
State Perspectives: Regulation & Supervision of Emerging Technology
State regulators play a crucial role in promoting responsible innovation. This panel features state approaches to regulating innovative technology in the financial services space. Topics will include fintechs, cryptos, regulatory coordination, and balancing innovation with consumer protection considerations.
Moderator: Heather Lee, Assistant General Counsel, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Panelists:
- Roberta Hollinshead, Director of Banks, Washington State Department of Financial Institutions
- Christina Tetreault, Deputy Commissioner, California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation
- Polly Klyce Pennoyer, Acting Executive Deputy Superintendent for Banking, New York Department of Financial Services
12:15 – 12:30 pm
Closing Remarks