The final day of Money20/20 came upon us and we had to say goodbye to charming Copenhagen, but not without taking in more pieces of wisdom and insights from all over the financial ecosystem.
After a debate on the power, potential and perils of personal data, focused on how regulation is actually driving innovation, we attended one on distributed ledgers, from proof-of-concept to real-world adoption, which also tackled the role of open source software in blockchain.
The on-site poll on DLT concluded that the biggest opportunity for it, in the long term, is cross-border payments, closely followed by KYC and identity, and trade finance (although we really-really appreciated the rebel voter for “saving the whales”).
Rita Liu, Head of EMEA at Alipay, nailed the main hurdle right now: “Disruption in the legacy systems requires time, money and devotion from the industry, a challenge that everyone needs to face.”
Legacy systems were also mentioned as a roadblock in Nuno Sebastiao‘s speech (CEO at Feedzai), but with a very practical side dish: “the nay-sayers of ‘Oh, it’s too risky, it’s problematic’. It’s NOT! It’s just evolution, creative destruction, the one that propels us forward into a different society. This is what enables, in the end, an open society, where people trade among countries, among geographies, with no barriers. That’s what we want to achieve.” Word!
“We’re all intertwined, we’re all part of the same big puzzle.”
– Nuno Sebastiao, CEO, Feedzai
– on collaboration
Nuno further underlined:
- “Initiatives like PSD2 and open banking will fundamentally transform the concept of brick-and-mortar bank that we had in the old days. Today, a bank is nothing more than an app that you use between multiple organizations, to do what you, as a consumer, want to achieve, which is essentially to transact.”
- “The providers of financial services are going to have to compete on customer experience, on what they can do for you, as opposed to ‘I’m gonna save your money and that’s good enough’. It’s not going to be good enough anymore.”
- “Do something that makes a difference. Don’t do yet another little thing […] Build something that you truly understand it’s going to help people. If you do that, there’s value there and people will recognize that.”
Picked up these vibes:
- Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is kinda like blockchain, but without all the bad stuff.
- Don’t design supercars in finance, you will find speedbumps on roads. Build a smooth infrastructure first, reach out to everyone and then go for excellence.
- We should learn from fraudsters who always share tips and tricks. We should share more to keep up with the bad guys.
Homework aka Food for Thought
How do you serve non customers and achieve financial inclusion?
All this API talk is about better experience for existing customers.
How to reach out to everyone?
