Event: Fintech NerdCon 2026
Dates: November 18-20, 2026 (side events November 18, main stage November 19-20)
Venue: San Diego Convention Center, 111 W. Harbor Drive
City: San Diego, California
Host: Fintech NerdCon, founded by Simon Taylor of Fintech Brainfood with Joy Schwartz and Colton Pond
Fintech NerdCon calls itself the fintech conference by operators, for operators, and the format backs that up: no sales booths. It started in Miami in November 2025, where the first edition drew more than 1,000 curated attendees, and moves to San Diego for its second year. Organizers expect about 1,500 operators: founders, engineers, risk and compliance people, and product leaders building payment rails, banking infrastructure and AI systems.
What’s on the program
The agenda, announced November 10, runs across two stages and five zones with about 200 speakers in fireside chats, panels, workshops, demos and roundtables. Main stage programming is on November 19 and 20. November 18 is given over to side quests around the city.
The topics are the ones fintech teams are actually fighting with: AI in production, agentic commerce, stablecoins, fraud and risk, compliance, cross-border payments and banking infrastructure. The organizers promise practical lessons from people who have built and scaled these systems, and from people who’ve failed at it. Leaders from Revolut US, Chime, Nubank and Plaid headline the lineup.
Who should go
NerdCon suits people who build fintech products more than people who sell to them. If you run engineering, risk, payments operations or compliance at a fintech or a bank’s digital arm, the roundtables and side sessions are the point. Vendors looking for a big expo hall won’t find one. Readers of Simon Taylor’s Fintech Brainfood newsletter will recognise the tone: technical, opinionated and allergic to marketing.
Check the official site for remaining passes, as the first edition sold out.