PROGRAMME
The topics covered at the Digital Finance Summit can be grouped in 6 tracks. Below you can find a short introduction of each track.
Banking
In a post-PSD2 world, the payments ecosystem has welcomed new parties and partnerships. Innovation is not only about technology but about adopting a new mindset, which can only be achieved by working together and learning from other innovators. Discover the stories of banks using technology, connect with their fintech partners and shape a new way of serving people and society with financial services.
Technology
How to best leverage mature and emerging technologies like cyber, cloud, blockchain, AI… Are some of them a blessing or a curse? The financial service world seems to be torn apart between the possibilities they bring in terms of new products and enhanced customer convenience and the new risks they create, especially in terms of respect of privacy. In the midst of a margin compression in banking, how can incumbents and new players reconcile the need for more and faster digital transformation with the mission to keep consumers’ trust?
Insurance
Some insurers are over 300 years old while insurtechs are born almost every day. Investment in insurtech is booming (doubling between 2017 and 2018) and insurance companies are investing heavily in digitalisation. How can insurers offer more personalisation, more speed and greater efficiency in their services to better serve their customers? As creating a better client experience is the building block of new technology, they do have a strong impact on front- and back-offices. How can insurers and their brokers create the win-win collaboration? How do they use new technologies (artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), etc.)? How do insurtechs understand the problems they solve? How do they fit into the industry that needs to change but do not always know how to do it?
Society
Can fintech save the climate? Climate change will be an absolute priority for the new European Commission. Sustainable finance will be a key tool to deliver on that agenda. Over the next decade, financial streams in Europe will radically shift away from activities that are not sustainable. Banks are discouraged to finance unsustainable activities. SME’s involved in polluting activities have more and more difficulties to finance their energy transitions. Society is struggling with the risk of growing inequality and financial exclusion. Rising energy bills and dropping property values put pressure on the lending capacity of corporates and families. How do we help corporates with a high carbon footprint to finance their transition? Can technology help families curb their energy costs? How can fintech, data analytics and artificial intelligence help banks to become more sustainable?
Regulation
Europe has become the home of progressive fintech policies. It appears essential that European policy makers and regulators design financial legislation in such a way it lets existing financial institutions to transform and grow while letting fintech newcomers flourish. However, this is a hard balance to strike because the European and global finance continues to complexify and cybercrime figures are hitting records.
Ecosystems
Innovation is first and foremost a people business. What is the current state of ‘fintech’ talent in Belgium and Europe? We see more and more accelerators/fintech hubs popping up in Europe. What is the current state of play thereof? Are they too many of them? Will we see some concentration in the coming years?
