This week more than 130 payments professionals and technologists will gather at the Carolina Theatre for the second annual PAYMENTSfn conference, hosted by Durham startup Spreedly.

Executives and software engineers from brands such as Shopify, PWC, AECOM and StrongKey are are among the lineup of speakers for the three-day event.

Keynotes will be presented by GoFundMe Head of Platform Daniel Cox, Patreon Head of Payments and Risk Michelle Vautier and Glossier Director of Engineering Aaron Suggs.

Lectures will cover several technical topics relevant to payments professionals, such as multicurrency marketplaces, encryption and data security, in-vehicle mobile payments and cross-cultural differences among users. Panels will discuss innovative payments strategies, the sharing economy, global markets and regulatory compliance.

The event also features a few rounds of lightning talks led by Spreedly’s employees, along with a panel about user experience from the company’s customers. Spreedly will also offer a preview of its latest product roadmap.

Spreedly VP of Marketing Peter Mollins says that the programming for PAYMENTSfn 2019 aims to focus on real-world examples showing innovative strategies merchants are using to improve the e-commerce experience for their customers.

“How customers pay merchants is an incredibly important part of the customer ‘journey,'” Mollins said. “Merchants are increasingly innovating around how they accept and process payments from their customers, and they’re building that innovation into their e-commerce applications. We’ve been excited about that and wanted to include more real-world examples of that innovation into the content for this second edition of the conference.”

Spreedly started PAYMENTSfn last year, prompted by the need for an in-depth program that could bring camaraderie and practical knowledge to payments engineers.

Announcing the 2018 program, Spreedly CTO Nathaniel Talbott wrote, “One thing the industry doesn’t have, at least from an engineer’s perspective, is a venue where those of us writing code in and around payments can learn from and hang out with peers in the industry.”

After a successful debut last year with enthusiasm expressed by attendees, Spreedly decided to keep the conference going in 2019.

Mollins says one of the highlights of last year’s program was the number of hallway conversations that took place between sessions.

“Developers, product managers and other practitioners were sharing their stories and experiences with payments,” Mollins adds. “In addition to the great content, we saw a lot of people walking out with great connections to others in the payments field.”

The event kicks off at 11:30 a.m.Tuesday and concludes mid-day Thursday, April 18. Registration is available online at $699.

https://wraltechwire.com/event/paymentsfn-2019/