Fintech Connect Live is a major 2-day fintech showcase held at Wembley stadium, with 2,000 with professionals expected to pass through.
Here’s what CBR learned when we visited.
1. Fintech and banks are becoming friends
While fintech originally emerged as a challenge to traditional financial institutions, many fintech firms are now helping provide access to the banks, normally for SMEs. Instead of trying to take on the big boys, these firms are facilitating.
Temenos who provides core banking software, is also looking to work with fintech firms via its Marketplace.
2. Borders are being broken down
Technology makes the world smaller, and some of the firms at the show are demonstrating that by bringing down the barriers to cross border payments and transfers. For example, TransferTo facilitates the realtime transfer of airtime top-ups, goods and services, and mobile money around the world.
3. Payments pay
Payments remains a key area of fintech development, and is well represented and Fintech Connect Live. Ixaris, for example, offer a range of payment solutions, while Wirecard may have been around since 1999, but it is still making moves in pre-paid card technology.
4. Utilities can be more useful than applications
Some fintech firms want to offer a full designed product, but many more are offering APIs and other utilities that can be integrated with existing tools. Currency Cloud’s API is for transparent foreign currency payments for business, for example, and mostly leaves it to the clients to worry about front end applications.
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5. Fintech is in the hands of the angels…or the crowdfunders
Some of those at Fintech connect, like Fintech Circle, were not selling their own wares, but providing different investment opportunities instead. Others, such as Syndicate Room, offer crowdfunding equity based crowdfunding schemes – there’s requires initial fundraising or Angel investment before crowdfunding.
