Tag: FinTech

World digitization process is causing massive changes in the payments industry in the recent years. And it’s not only Blockchain and its cryptocurrencies that are transforming the FinTech world, but a number of new startups that are finding new ways for moving money across the globe. Enterprises have already realized that the key to success in the digital economy is the constant evolution, that can keep them competitive and relevant to customers. A recent New Money survey showed that experts in this industry predict the end of cash money by 2020. More and more organizations stop accepting cash payments, while the number of customers managing their money digitally is rising rapidly. At this year’s Webit.Festival Europe you can listen to some of the top experts in the world of finance and payments. During the FinTech & Blockchain Summit they will share their expectations about the development of money and finance worldwide and the role of technology in it. The Global Head of FinTech at ING Group Benoit Legrand will speak about the process of digital transformation in general and the way his company is tackling the challenge of embedding innovation at its core for the last 20 years. Novus Ordo Capital’s CEO Liliana Reasor will share her thoughts on the disruptive technology in the finance market, which accounts for $1.59 trillion in the US and the EU. She will explain how the FinTech ventures, driven by the digitization of the world, are forming the finance industry of the future. Reasor is a thought leader in the FinTech and the finance industry and is active in several UK FinTech accelerators. She brings more than 18 years of experience in investment banking, lending, trading, investments, and FinTech from tier-one global financial institutions such as JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Banc of America Securities, Morgan Stanley, and Moody’s Analytics in the US and the UK. Due to her contribution to the FinTech & finance industry, she was selected as one of the Top 100 Global FinTech Women Influencers and Leaders in 2015. TransferWise’s CEO and Co-Founder Kristo Kaarmann will share his thoughts on the time of change we live in and how technology will change the way we store money, move them between people and businesses and invest them. The Executive VP for Global Product Strategy at Wirecard Christian Von Hammel-Bonten will talk about the future of payments from the point of view of a global leader in online payment technology for all sales channels. Since 2011, von Hammel-Bonten has been responsible for building up Wirecard’s Mobile Payment division. In his function, he managed the launch of various mobile payment solutions and technologies and worked with telecommunication providers and banks. The CEO of Eurogiro Michel Stuijt and the CEO and Co-Founder of Rewire Or Benoz will take part in a panel discussion about the future of payments. Stuijt is a veteran with over 25 years of experience in the financial service industry, the corporate banking business and the ICT sector. Benoz founded his company in 2015 and now Rewire offers a low cost banking solutions for internationals abroad and works with more than 10 000 clients in Israel alone. Here you can see a full list of the confirmed speakers at Webit.Festival, while here you can get all the information you need about the tickets for the event.

The Blockchain technology has the potential to lower the bank infrastructure expenses by nearly 30% if it is implemented in the right way. This will help the banks worldwide to save between $8 and $12 billion per year. But there are still many questions to be answered before Blockchain becomes the go to tech in the world of big banking, and not only. The Executive Chairman of Alphabet Inc. Eric Schmidt described it as an incredible achievement of cryptography and said that in the modern era the ability to create something that no one can copy has a great value. One of the main reasons for success of the internet is the constant changing of the way we transfer data, audio and video. But until now, the global network never had a method for transfer of assets. Blockchain is the technological solution, that made this thing a reality. But still most people remain skeptical about the libertarian utopia of Bitcoin and the radical philosophy it presents. Of course Blockchain is much bigger than its most recognized cryptocurrency and has the power to be the main tool of the Big Data global infrastructure of the future. The main concern about Blockchain remains its safety. In December, Forbes reported that hackers have stolen millions of dollars in Bitcoin, using only phone numbers. Unfortunately, unlike the credit card transactions, the transfers of cryptocurrency is irreversible. Recently even the big industry players, like venture capitalists and entrepreneurs were hit by a wave of Bitcoin scams. Most of them are done by a phone number highjacking and changing the passwords of email accounts and bank profiles. This type of security weakness can be used against anyone who is using their phone for services as Google, PayPal, Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter and iCloud. In the period between 2017 and 2021 the expenses for cybersecurity worldwide will surpass $1 trillion, compared to only $81.6 billion for 2016. Meanwhile experts predict that in 2021 the total cost of cybercrime damages is gonna be around $6 trillion - double than the $3 trillion in 2013. With the expanding of IoE we can expect around 50 billion connected devices by the end of the decade, and all of them will need to be secured. By 2020 the volume of data in internet will be around 50 times bigger than it is today. The connected future of the world present many opportunities, but along with them will come the serious risk for our privacy and personal and financial safety. To learn more on the topic of cyber security and privacy, visit the Security & Privacy Summit within Webit.Festival Europe. Top level speakers from all over the world will share their experience during the event, which is held on 25 and 26 of April in Sofia. You can listen to the CEO of LSEC-Leaders in Security Ulrich Seldeslachts, the CEO of Intel Security for EMEA region Raj Samani and the Co-Founder of Distil Network Rami Essaid. During the Webit’s FinTech & Blockchain Summit speakers like the Executive VP for Global product strategy of Wirecard Christian Von Hammel-Boten and the venture capital investor and CEO of Novus Ordo Capital Liliana Reasor will share their views on topics, such as the future of payments and the ventures, driven by digitalization.

Despite of having the lion share of the world’s money, financial markets are among the most conservative fields of business and are usually focusing more on the results than on development and deployment of innovative solutions. But the fast spread of disruptive companies like Robinhood, which allows free stock trading, has made 2016 really amazing for the FinTech industry and led to its moving into the mainstream. Just five years ago FinTech was not something that most people would invest in, but now, it has become one of the hottest industries in the startup world. Why? Just because it gives the chance for a new company to offer services and compete with the big banks. Let’s just think about how easier it has become to make a bank transaction online than it was few years ago. Now every big financial institution is obliged to incorporate online banking in its platform to be competitive on the market. The internet platforms for crowd-funding are just another example of how FinTech has made our lives better and has empowered people to invest in projects on the other side of the globe. This type of technology continues to dramatically change the landscape for several spheres and the process is not going to slow down in the near future. Experts predict that in 2017 we are going to see credit and debit cards becoming more and more useless in the developed world, where cash is quickly giving way to phone financial transactions. The CEO of Vena Solutions Don Mal says that now having a smartphone in your pocket is much more important than your physical wallet. His expectation is that in the next five years the market for contactless cards will double and most of the retailers will accept mobile wallets. Meanwhile the biometric sensors on our phones will work not only for the HealthTech industry, but also for better payment security. In the near future we will see an multistep process for verification, which may include fingerprints, iris scans and facial recognition. Of course the better financial technologies will benefit not only the rich. In fact, they can be even more important for people in developing countries. In Kenya the system, that locals call “mobile money”, allows those without access to bank accounts to deposit, withdraw, and transfer cash with a simple SMS. According to Science Magazine’s study the access to M-PESA, the country’s most popular mobile money system, lifted hundreds of thousands of Kenyans above the poverty line. The network was introduced in the country in 2007 by Kenya’s largest mobile service provider - Safaricom. It is now used by at least one person in 96% of Kenyan households. You can learn more about the newest trends in FinTech and Blockchain sector by attending to Webit.Festival 2017. During the two-day agenda of the festival in Sofia you can listen to top level speakers from all over the world, who will share their experience on topics, such as Marketing & Innovation, Big Data & Cloud, IoE, Digital Transformation, Security & Privacy, Health & Wellbeing and Mobility. Among them will be the Executive VP for Global product strategy of Wirecard Christian Von Hammel-Boten and the venture capital investor and CEO of Novus Ordo Capital Liliana Reasor.

Mobile payments right now are incredibly complicated and figuring out how to do them has been a great challenge. However, once we figured that out the next challenge we are facing is how to persuade consumers to use them. Speedinvest is an early stage venture fund in Vienna. They invest in countries like Turkey, Slovenia, and hopefully soon in Bulgaria. Investing in FinTech is like a rollercoaster, with disruptions going on in every field, like trading, cryptocurrency, payment and many other fields. It really doesn’t matter which area you will choose, there is room for startups in all of them. This is because big players aren’t able to cope with the development speeds of the technology, they are not flexible enough. There are exceptions to this rule, but startups are generally more able to grasp the new trends in technology and use it to create a new field. As in every other startup market you need to create traction with your first product, or you will not get too far. FinTech is different, however, from other verticals, because it is a regulated business. When you start one you have to choose to either partner with a licensed institution or get a license yourself. Both of these solutions take time, and getting a license yourself costs a lot of money. One piece of advice to take away is that investing in teams made up only of experts is not a good idea. It looks very tempting, but those people are typically not very good founders. Really good founders can learn about every field and become an expert in the field in a very short period of time. The ways Speedinvest deals with the founders it finances is creating bonds with them, not just giving them money. In order to be successful in the field, there has to be mutual trust and respect between founder and investor. The investment is emotional as well as financial.

 "In the end, it is all about great founders. No matter what and how much you invest, you need a great founder team in order to succeed" shared on the stage of CEEDS'15 Stefan Klestil - General Partner, SpeedInvest.