Last Thursday, the Fintech Connect Advisory Board met for the first time this year, at the Doubletree by Hilton Tower of London.
Over the course of a day, 4 closed-door meetings took place addressing the key themes of the agenda this year; Digital Transformation, PayTech, RegTech and Blockchain. Over 50 leaders were in attendance, with award for furthest distance travelled specially to attend going to Oli Harris, Head of Crypto-Assets Strategy & Quorum, JP Morgan. He got the red eye from New York to attend the 10 am blockchain roundtable. He was closely followed, on the travel stakes, by Ewan MacLeod, Chief Digital Officer at Scandinavian banking hegemon Nordea, who flew in especially from Copenhagen for the day.
Key Discussions on the future of FinTech
Among topics discussed included-
- The impact of AI on the finance industry – with the general consensus being that the difficulties currently for financial institutions revolve around definition (what actually is AI in this context) and implementation
- The challenge of frictionless payments in the wake of Strong Customer Authentication.
- How blockchain will need to go beyond the Wild West, and is the bitcoin buzz over?
- The future role of digital identity and cybersecurity in banking
A need for innovation in fintech conferences
The overarching theme though, was the need for innovation in conferences. Finance leaders are bored of death by PowerPoint from Mr CXO from incumbent bank trying to showcase how they are embracing the digital age. They want to hear success stories, of real world applications, that they can learn from.
This doesn’t necessarily mean a bank – challenger or not. There is also a real excitement about the FinTech opportunity coming out of Asia, and a desire to learn about this; what this could mean for the European FinTech industry.
It’s safe to say; having this many leaders in one location for the day resulted in some phenomenally good feedback.
‘It was great to see so many innovation leaders in the same location.’
– Stephane Malrait, Head of Market Structure and Innovation Financial Markets at ING
FinTech Connect will strive to continue to drive the thought leadership in the industry, rather than just follow it. Our next advisory board meeting will be taking place on July 3rd at The Grange St Paul’s, where we will reconvene the discussion with leading banks, insurers, merchants, disruptors and market leading solution providers.
If you wish to see the full list of members of the advisory board, please click here.
If you are interested in joining the board email me at Laurence.coldicott@fintechconnect.com
Register for FinTech Connect on 3–4 December at ExCeL, London.
View the FinTech Connect 2019 website to find out more
Source: https://www.fintechconnect.com/blockchain/articles/fintech-connect-advisory-board-roundup
