First month of the year 2019 is behind and what was the takeaway from this week Paris Fintech Forum, one of the biggest annual gatherings of its kind in Europe?
Venture capital-backed #Fintech companies raised a record $39.57 billion from investors globally in 2018, which was up 120% from the year 2017 and funding was raised through 1,707 deals, according to research by CB Insights Data. Thus, Paris Fintech Forum, biggest European event on digital #finance, is the trendsetter conference for the #financialservices.
It is obvious, what is the main theme: WORKING IN CLOSER PARTNERSHIP WITH FINTECH. The conference was actually getting back to #banking basics and called time on transactional banking with the dawning of a new age. In this new era traditional players are refashioned through #openbanking and by #APIs and the #serviceprovider- model. And the new versions of old-fashioned lending are interesting.
So crypto/virtual currency fever has truly broken. The only interesting piece of information with blockchain - theme from the conference is by SWIFT CEO Gottfried Leibbrandt announcing an integration with R3 consortium. In the service corporates using the R3 platform will be able to authorize payments from their banks via SWIFT GPI Link and payments will be settled by the corporates’ banks creating credit confirmations, which will be reported back to the actual #trade platforms.
The hottest fintech jargon was in instead of blockchain, the “Banking-as-a-Service”- phenomena or how some call it: “Bank-in-a-Box”- phenomena.
It is very clear that year 2019 is the year when all are intensifying their interaction with Fintechs and the aim is for developing new strategic partnerships. This is huge opportunity for Finnish scale-up Fintechs also. Everybody´s goal is to nurture open banking strategy, create new business, new earning models, new concepts for the customers that will provide value for the clients. From Finland Mash and Holvi were on stage this year. Hope to see more Finnish scale-ups flying next year!
Fintechlly yours,
Kirsi