Networking

Breakfast

General Session

AI Solutions and Best Practices for the Financial Industry

Kevin Miyamoto, Identifee; Peter Tapling, PTap Advisory, Gilles Ubaghs, Datos Insights

Cutting-edge AI technologies are rapidly reshaping financial institutions, from internal operations to client access and service delivery. This session will spotlight innovative AI tools in financial services and examine how they are improving efficiency, streamlining processes and expanding access. Panelists will share actionable insights into the benefits of these tools, best practices for successful implementation and strategies for identifying, addressing and mitigating associated risks. Join us to gain a clearer understanding of how AI is transforming the industry and how institutions can adopt these technologies responsibly.

Breakout Session

Reinventing Positive Pay for the Modern Payments Era

Thelma Hill, Q2

Check fraud is still here, and it’s evolving faster than many realize. Even as digital payments surge, fraudsters continue to exploit vulnerabilities and outdated defenses. Meanwhile, ACH and business payments have become the next frontier for fraudsters. This session explores how financial institutions can modernize Positive Pay for today’s hybrid payment environment by leveraging automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and smarter workflows to protect clients and drive new revenue. We’ll explore how forward-thinking financial institutions are turning fraud prevention into a growth strategy, using solutions like Enhanced Payee Match within Positive Pay to detect anomalies earlier, reduce false positives and empower businesses to take control of their own protection. Attendees will walk away with a playbook to embed Positive Pay into client onboarding, education and pricing models, making fraud prevention a competitive differentiator.  

Breakout Session

Same Day ACH: The Sky’s the Limit

Michael Herd, Nacha

Another year, another record breaker. In 2025, Same Day ACH payment volume is predicted to top 1.3 billion payments, valued at over $3.8 trillion. And imagine the potential if the $1 million per-payment limit were to jump to $10 million! Could it happen? We’ll discuss the recent Request for Comment regarding that possibility and potential future steps. Additionally, we’ll explore some of the numerous ways your clients can utilize this faster payment option to their advantage. 

Breakout Session

Get Your Originators Compliant—and Keep Them That Way

Debbie Barr, AAP, AFPP, CTP, Nacha

ODFIs are responsible for their Originators’ compliance with the ACH Rules, but you probably struggle with knowing how to get information about new Rules to your Originators and ensure they follow them. Attendees will learn about ways Nacha can assist with communicating the information and tools to help understand the new Rules, as well as hints and tips ODFIs can use to get their Originators compliant and keep them that way. This interactive session will also include an ODFI and/or Originator who will share how they learn about and prepare for new Rules.

Breakout Session

Inside the Fraud Factory: How Real-Time Payments Are Rewriting the Rules of Risk

Jane Hennessy, Finzly; Colin Parsons, Nasdaq Verafin

Fraud has evolved faster than most fraud teams. As real-time payments and embedded finance reshape the ecosystem, bad actors are scaling with AI, automation and social engineering that outpace legacy defenses. This session peels back the curtain on how modern fraud operations work and how leading financial institutions are combating them in real-time. You’ll see live case studies of instant-payment fraud patterns, learn how data intelligence and behavioral analytics can expose synthetic identities and discover new collaborative models emerging across networks. Attendees will leave with a modern fraud-defense playbook—one that balances speed, security and client experience in an always-on payment world.

Breakout Session

UCC Update and Recent Case Law

Scott Jones, Adams & Reese

How resilient is your check-fraud program against today’s evolving schemes? This session distills the core Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) provisions governing check fraud (Articles 3 and 4) into practical guidance for your institution. You will learn about counterfeits, forgeries, alterations and “cooked” checks and how they are impacted by presentment warranties, the midnight deadline and how they shape your liability and/or recovery. Finally, we will review court decisions from across the country to examine how the UCC is applied. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of risk hotspots, litigation themes and actionable steps to strengthen controls, allocate risk by contract and position claims and defenses effectively.

Please note: This session will be repeated after lunch at 1:10.

Breakout Session

2027 ACH Rules Update & Beyond

Shelly Sipple, AAP, AFPP, APRP, NCP, EPCOR

Ensure your institution remains compliant with the latest amendments to the ACH Rules. We will cover key updates to prioritize in your compliance strategy, helping you navigate upcoming changes in 2027 and beyond with confidence. We’ll cover enhancements to International ACH Transaction (IAT) processing, including new requirements for registering IAT contacts in the ACH Contact Registry, an increased Same Day ACH transaction limit and a new Return Reason Code designed to support sanctions compliance obligations. Join us to gain the insights you need to strengthen your operations and stay aligned with evolving regulatory expectations.

Please note: This session will be repeated after lunch at 1:10.

Breakout Session

A New Frontier: Emerging Payments and Their Possibilities

Lali Shaffer, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Let’s explore the evolving role of digital payments, such as stablecoins and tokenized products. This session will discuss their impact on the financial system and how they are being adopted for transactions. We’ll also cover the risks and regulatory challenges and share insights into their potential to transform the future of payments.

Please note: This session will be repeated after lunch at 1:10.

Breakout Session

Decoding Reg E and Debit Card Disputes

Diana Kern, AAP, SHAZAM

Regulation E is a straightforward concept, yet the language can be complicated. Applying the regulation to each situation often falls into a gray area. We’ll cut to the chase and discuss best practices for resolving errors and simplify the ways to determine liability. This session will cover what actions you might take to investigate, why “unauthorized” is more complicated than ever, how to manage claims outside of the regulation’s stated timeframe and when it’s okay to question the consumer’s claim.

Please note: This session will be repeated after lunch at 1:10.

Vendor Showcases

Nacha, Identifee, Fincom, Chase

Lunch and Core Provider Roundtable Discussions

Breakout Session

UCC Update and Recent Case Law

Scott Jones, Adams & Reese

How resilient is your check-fraud program against today’s evolving schemes? This session distills the core Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) provisions governing check fraud (Articles 3 and 4) into practical guidance for your institution. You will learn about counterfeits, forgeries, alterations and “cooked” checks and how they are impacted by presentment warranties, the midnight deadline and how they shape your liability and/or recovery. Finally, we will review court decisions from across the country to examine how the UCC is applied. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of risk hotspots, litigation themes and actionable steps to strengthen controls, allocate risk by contract and position claims and defenses effectively.

Breakout Session

2027 ACH Rules Update & Beyond

Shelly Sipple, AAP, AFPP, APRP, NCP, EPCOR

Ensure your institution remains compliant with the latest amendments to the ACH Rules. We will cover key updates to prioritize in your compliance strategy, helping you navigate upcoming changes in 2027 and beyond with confidence. We’ll cover enhancements to International ACH Transaction (IAT) processing, including new requirements for registering IAT contacts in the ACH Contact Registry, an increased Same Day ACH transaction limit and a new Return Reason Code designed to support sanctions compliance obligations. Join us to gain the insights you need to strengthen your operations and stay aligned with evolving regulatory expectations.

Breakout Session

A New Frontier: Emerging Payments and Their Possibilities

Lali Shaffer, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Let’s explore the evolving role of digital payments, such as stablecoins and tokenized products. This session will discuss their impact on the financial system and how they are being adopted for transactions. We’ll also cover the risks and regulatory challenges and share insights into their potential to transform the future of payments.

Breakout Session

Decoding Reg E and Debit Card Disputes

Diana Kern, AAP, SHAZAM

Regulation E is a straightforward concept, yet the language can be complicated. Applying the regulation to each situation often falls into a gray area. We’ll cut to the chase and discuss best practices for resolving errors and simplify the ways to determine liability. This session will cover what actions you might take to investigate, why “unauthorized” is more complicated than ever, how to manage claims outside of the regulation’s stated timeframe and when it’s okay to question the consumer’s claim.

Breakout Session

Fraud on the Wire

Christy Lillie, Northbridge Advisory Group

The wire transfer payment rail is considered a “large value” system, and fraudsters can reap significant rewards with a single successful fraud event. Businesses are targeted by account takeover, business email compromise or impersonation schemes, while consumers are preyed upon by scams that create a false sense of security, such as investing in opportunities that are too good to be true or trying cryptocurrency for the first time. This fraud often leads to businesses having liquidity issues or consumers having all their financial accounts drained. Together, we’ll discuss the current wire fraud threats to your account holders and mitigation techniques to help your businesses and consumers.

Breakout Session

From Data to Dollars: Turning Payment Intelligence into a Competitive Advantage

Matthew Friend, JPMorgan Chase; Jane Hennessy, Finzly

The payments race is no longer about speed; it’s about intelligence. As Pay by Bank and instant payments move into riskier use cases, understanding what happens beyond the transaction becomes your best defense and biggest advantage. In this session, we’ll explore how intelligent transaction tagging – tracking attributes such as use case, industry, sender ID and transaction types – helps financial institutions see what others can’t: patterns that reveal market shifts, predict fraud and uncover new revenue streams. You’ll learn how data-driven visibility uncovered a 3-6x spike in risk exposure across commerce and wallet Account-to-Account (A2A) payments, and how the same insights are now guiding smarter product design and client experiences. Walk away with a blueprint for transforming payment data into intelligence, and intelligence into growth.

Breakout Session

ISO 20022 Adoption: From Compliance to Value

Robin LoGuidice, Datos Insights

Many financial institutions approached the ISO 20022 migration as a mandatory industry upgrade, but they have not yet fully capitalized on the value of the richer, more structured data available in ISO 20022 messages. True adoption begins with the banking ecosystem's ability to create, manage, consume, store and effectively use this data across products and processes. This session will review how the adoption of ISO 20022 shapes institutional performance and the substantial modernization efforts required to unlock its full value.

Breakout Session

ACH Rules Enforcement in Action

Liz Cone, AFPP, AAP, APRP, EPCOR

Understanding the ACH Rules is one thing; seeing them enforced in the real world is another. This session provides an in-depth look at the ACH Rules violation process through the lens of actual Nacha case studies. We will move beyond theory to examine real-world scenarios in which financial institutions faced significant fines and reputational risk. Join us for this practical, case-based session to strengthen your institution’s compliance framework and learn how to avoid the costly pitfalls of ACH Rules non-compliance.

General Session

Go For Gold: Teamwork, Toughness and Tenacity

Lindsay Tarpley, Praxis Sports

This powerful keynote explores the mindset, strategies and resilience required to achieve world-class success. Drawing from personal experiences in Olympic and World Cup competitions, Lindsay highlights the importance of setting clear goals, developing a disciplined plan and quickly adapting to challenges. She also emphasizes the value of mental toughness, teamwork and learning from both victories and setbacks. Attendees will walk away with practical strategies for overcoming obstacles, executing under pressure and sustaining long-term motivation, as well as tools needed to be a great teammate, even on teams with diverse personalities. You’ll also learn how to apply principles of elite gold medal athletes to your own situation and find, create and envision your own gold medal moment.

Networking

Dining with Strangers

Networking

Breakfast

General Session

Outpacing the Threat: Fraud Scams and Mitigation Strategies

Christie Lillie, Amanda Compton

Financial criminals are operating with unprecedented sophistication, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), automated synthetic identity theft and deepfakes to outsmart traditional security perimeters. In an era where fraud has shifted from simple system compromises to highly orchestrated social engineering, financial institutions must continuously evolve their defense playbooks. This session dives deep into the anatomy of today’s most pervasive fraud schemes and provides a roadmap for deploying resilient mitigation techniques. Hear from leading fraud industry experts as they unpack the latest attack methodologies and mitigation strategies.

Breakout Session

Instant Payments Risk and Fraud Mitigation

Sharon Hallmark, AAP, APRP, AFPP, EPCOR

As the popularity of RTP® and the FedNow® Service grows, people are thinking about how to address fraud in the credit-push fraud era. This session will examine the unique challenges of instant payments, fraud reporting requirements and strategies to minimize credit fraud.

Breakout Session

Quantum-Safe: Protecting Payments in the Quantum Era

Peter Tapling, PTap Advisory

As the quantum era approaches, leaders in the payments industry must future-proof payment systems and protect financial operations. Hear insights from the technology and financial services sectors that draw from a leading quantum payments project team's whitepaper to explore quantum and guide institutions toward quantum-safe status.

Breakout Session

How AI Can Improve Your Financial Institution’s Operations

Kevin Miyamoto, Identifee

Let’s explore how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming banking operations by driving efficiency, accuracy and resilience. Attendees will gain insight into how AI-powered tools are being used to automate routine processes, enhance decision-making, detect fraud and improve regulatory compliance. Through real-world use cases and practical examples, the session will highlight how financial institutions can leverage AI to reduce costs and respond more quickly to changing market and regulatory conditions while maintaining strong governance and ethical standards. You will leave with a better understanding of where AI delivers the most value today and how to begin or scale adoption responsibly within your organization.

Breakout Session

Examining the Payments Ecosystem (Part One)

Mark Majeske, Alacriti; Dan Gonzales, Federal Reserve Financial Services

This two-part workshop examines how financial institutions can design and execute a payments strategy that supports today’s needs while positioning the organization for long-term innovation and growth. As the faster payments ecosystem continues to mature, with both established and emerging rails such as the RTP® Network, the FedNow® Service, Zelle®, Visa Direct, cross-border solutions and innovations like stablecoins and tokenized deposits, institutions must put a cohesive, organization-wide strategy in place. Designed for financial institution executives, this session moves beyond the basics to examine how these capabilities intersect operationally and strategically. We will examine adoption trends shaping the years ahead and discuss how to align use cases with the right rails, how to securely monetize these capabilities and what it takes to operationalize payments innovation at scale. Attendees will leave with practical insights, real-world perspectives and a clearer understanding of how to bring a modern payments strategy together across the enterprise.

Breakout Session

2026 Faster Payments Outlook: Trends, Adoption and What’s Next

Reed Luhtanen, U.S. Faster Payments Counsel

The 2026 U.S. Instant Payments Adoption Quantitative Study, a collaboration between the U.S. Faster Payments Council and Federal Reserve Financial Services, provides an in-depth look at how instant payments are evolving across the industry and reflects input from third-party enablers that collectively serve more than 90% of U.S. financial institutions. The 2026 Faster Payments Barometer Study, sponsored by Volante Technologies, adds broader industry perspectives on adoption drivers, implementation challenges, emerging opportunities and evolving priorities. Together, these studies offer a comprehensive view of the current faster payments landscape and the factors shaping growth through 2028. In this session, we will explore the use cases delivering value for financial institutions, where consumer demand is accelerating, and how technology is improving accessibility, efficiency, and the overall payments experience for FIs and their clients.

Breakout Session

Examining the Payments Ecosystem (Part Two)

Mark Majeske, Alacriti; Dan Gonzales, Federal Reserve Financial Services

his two-part workshop examines how financial institutions can design and execute a payments strategy that supports today’s needs while positioning the organization for long-term innovation and growth. As the faster payments ecosystem continues to mature, with both established and emerging rails such as the RTP® Network, the FedNow® Service, Zelle®, Visa Direct, cross-border solutions and innovations like stablecoins and tokenized deposits, institutions must put a cohesive, organization-wide strategy in place. Designed for financial institution executives, this session moves beyond the basics to examine how these capabilities intersect operationally and strategically. We will examine adoption trends shaping the years ahead and discuss how to align use cases with the right rails, how to securely monetize these capabilities and what it takes to operationalize payments innovation at scale. Attendees will leave with practical insights, real-world perspectives and a clearer understanding of how to bring a modern payments strategy together across the enterprise.

Breakout Session

24/7 Settlement & Liquidity: How Stablecoins and Traditional Rails May Converge (Without Breaking Trust)

Kris Varma, Visa Direct

Tokenized value and stablecoins may complement existing rails to enable 24/7 settlement and liquidity management. This session takes a pragmatic look at where stablecoins add utility—prefunding, treasury operations and cross border value movement—along with the governance, controls and compliance needed to preserve safety and trust as these models converge with traditional payment experiences.

Breakout Session

Piecing Together the Check Breach of Warranty Puzzle

Marcy Cauthon, AAP, NCP, AFPP, APRP, EPCOR

With the continued rise in check fraud comes the increase in breach of warranty claims filed for checks. As the check-processing workforce starts to fade away, many financial institutions are plagued by higher rates of check fraud, with new staff members puzzled by the entire check breach of warranty process. This session will help attendees piece together the complex puzzle of not only filing a check breach of warranty claim but how to respond to one they receive.

General Session

The Future of Payments: Fast Money, Smart Defense

Reed Luhtanen, Peter Tapling, Kevin Miyamoto

Payments are becoming increasingly instant, intelligent and programmable, but fraud is accelerating just as fast. As real-time payments and stablecoins remove friction and eliminate recovery windows, trust and identity move to the center of the payments experience. This session explores how AI, real-time decisioning and client-centric design are redefining fraud prevention, shifting it from reactive controls to proactive protection. The future of payments isn’t just about moving money faster; it’s about knowing who is moving it, why and stopping fraud before it happens.

Prize Drawing/Conference Adjourns

Break for Lunch!

Post-Conference Workshop attendees are encouraged to enjoy a lunch break at one of the many nearby restaurants.

Post-Conference Workshop

Exploring Today’s Account Takeover Threats & Fraud Solutions Showcase

Amanda Compton, Federal Reserve Financial Services

Join us for an interactive, scenario-driven session that breaks down how modern account takeover (ATO) attacks unfold and what financial institutions can do to slow them down. Through a guided scenario, you’ll collaborate with peers on responding to ATO and classifying events using the FraudClassifierSM and ScamClassifierSM models to strengthen your institution’s feedback loops. We’ll also look at how emerging technologies are transforming ATO risks, and introduce the Federal Reserve’s new Account Takeover Mitigation Toolkit to help elevate your defenses. We’ll close the workshop by examining a few solutions that can help mitigate fraud at your institution.

*While this workshop is free to attend, separate registration is required and space is limited.

Post-Conference Workshop

Benefiting from FedNow®: A Practical Guide for Financial Institutions

Kristina Wickersham, Federal Reserve Financial Services

Curious about the FedNow® Service but unsure where to start? This session provides a clear, practical roadmap for financial institutions ready to join the FedNow® Service. We’ll begin with a straightforward overview of what the FedNow® Service is and how it works, then highlight real-world success stories and walk through the end-to-end process flow. Attendees will learn how to identify target clients, match client types to common use cases, select the right participation model and calculate potential return on investment (ROI). We’ll also cover key technology and operational requirements, from enabling client access and connecting to the network to managing 24/7 operations, settlement and reconciliation. Finally, we’ll review onboarding steps, testing, certification and proven risk mitigation strategies so your organization can move forward with confidence.

*While this workshop is free to attend, separate registration is required and space is limited.

Optional

Fall FPC Member Meeting

Paymentspalooza attendees are invited to extend their learning experience by attending the U.S. Faster Payments Council’s Fall Meeting. Upon registering for Paymentspalooza, attendees will receive instructions to register for $375 (50% off the FPC non-member rate).