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The Confidential Computing Summit 2026, where fintech security is on the agenda, will convene in June at the historic, fortress-like San Francisco Mint. Venue security and safe, stable destinations are table stakes for financial services events.
The financial services sector is growing at one of the fastest rates in the world, and its scale, along with the intensity of its tech-accelerated transformation, is creating new opportunities for the global business events industry, said Albert Cerezales Garcia, a strategic consultant at global events and marketing agency MCI.
During a webinar in June, Garcia walked business event professionals through a new report, “Financial Services: The Pulse of Global Events 2026.” Produced by PCMA in collaboration with MCI, the 46-page report offers a deep dive into the market forces, trends, and strategies that are expanding and reshaping financial services events. Garcia advised organizers not to go after the whole market, but instead take a highly targeted approach, armed with an in-depth understanding of the needs and nuances of a particular sector.
Among the general trends Garcia highlighted during the webinar:
The rise of subsectors
Financial services events traditionally have favored the world’s top financial hubs, such as London, New York, Hong Kong, and São Paulo, but destinations and regions outside of those hotspots are successfully attracting financial meetings by tapping into fast-growing subsectors. Fintech is the largest, but niches include paytech (payment technology), regtech (regulatory technology), insurtech (insurance technology), cybersecurity, and others. Competition for those meetings is strong, Garcia said, and marketing budgets are down, despite the industry’s growth. “Every event must really prove its value.”
The growth of citywide, festival-style events
Instead of one standalone conference, many financial services events have expanded into week-long gatherings that spread events and partner activations across multiple venues in a host city. For example, the 2,500-person, four-day Future Proof Citywide, an investment management conference held in 2025 in Miami Beach, Florida, took over a four-block stretch of South Beach, including the beachfront, for content stages and street activations.
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Experiential everywhere
AI has created a “sea of sameness,” Garcia said. “Everything looks the same in terms of marketing ads, in terms of events … Every LinkedIn post is the same.” What audiences for both association and corporate events value is experiences, he said. Participatory formats like hackathons augment traditional trade shows, and some corporate events seek a competitive edge through multi-sensory experiences. One example: Salt Flats Summit, an invitation-only fintech conference sponsored by automated lending and credit platform LoanPro, brought more than 300 executives to the Bonneville Salt Flats in northwestern Utah last September, where sessions were held in tents during the day, followed by firewalking under the stars in the evening.
A New Set of Tools
PCMA’s “Financial Services: The Pulse of Global Events 2026” will help business professionals better understand the financial services sector, whether they work for destinations positioning themselves to attract financial services events or are corporate or association planners looking to tap into specific financial sectors, said Chantal Sturk-Nadeau, PCMA’s vice president for innovation & insights, who led the research.
In addition to outlining market forces and trends, the report includes an overview of the financial services event ecosystem, including its flagship events, geographic hotspots, and the key organizations hosting events. It also lists the sector’s most relevant LinkedIn groups, top influencers, and opinion leaders, along with insights from prominent marketing and event leaders. The full report includes a checklist outlining the steps that readers can take to leverage the trends uncovered by the research. “It really is information that you can take to design a [financial services events] portfolio and your strategy,” MCI’s Albert Cerezales Garcia said. It answers the questions: “How do we really go after the key players and what do we need to do to get them?”
Barbara Palmer is Convene’s deputy editor.
“Financial Services: The Pulse of Global Events 2026” is the first of four market sector reports to be published by PCMA Insights. Find the full report, which includes comprehensive financial services market data, a full analysis of financial services events, and recommended strategies plotted to specific sectors and business roles, here.