Magazine BEAST #16 2019

#Business | FinTech
29
You are mixing Fintechs and top-level incumbents on
stage. But what happens backstage – any real deals?
Since our very first edition, we’ve promoted cooperation
between incumbents and Fintechs. There is competition,
of course, but ‘coopetition’ is really the word here. New
entrants mostly disrupted tech solutions providers
(core banking, RegTech, robo-advisors, credit platforms,
application programming interface (API) providers,
blockchain solutions) more than banks or insurance firms
themselves. But to get back to your question, yes, real
deals definitely happen! We very often receive messages
from our speakers and attendees, telling us about business
deals, investment discussions or partnership agreements
during the Forum. We plan the event for that to happen:
innovation and business lounges are organized with our
partners to foster meetings and partnership propositions;
dedicated networking apps help you to find the right
match for your needs and organize meetings, and there
are numerous networking spaces. Last but not least, 64
per cent of our attendees this year were CEOs, C-level
executives and directors. They are the decision-makers,
which is key to making real business happen!
Who are the main partners to organize
such a big international event?
Every year, we gather around 200 financial partners,
including major sponsors, exhibitors and institutions. We
purposely limit the number of platinum and gold sponsors
to 16. This year, our platinum sponsors are Arkea, Banking
Circle, BNP Paribas, Mastercard, Sopra Banking Software
and Wirecard. Gold sponsors are Capgemini, Finance
Innovation, Forter, IDnow, Mambu, Rapyd, Rise, Temenos,
Tribe Payments and Western Union. It’s a very diverse mix.
Then there are almost 150 exhibitors and many dedicated
partnerships.
What will be the key subjects on the agenda
this year?
With five content stages (1 more than for the last edition)
and two workshop rooms, we’ll have many subjects
covered. Among them will be: the future of retail banking,
artificial intelligence applied to the finance industry and
digital identity being the basis of everything. Moreover,
as a global ‘red thread’ for the event, we’ll focus on the
North America/Europe areas of commonality and points of
difference in financial services development. And, as usual,
we’ll also be looking at the ‘different realities’ of Fintech
and finance industry cooperation.
But there will also be some surprises this year. We will host
a full one-day track on payments with all the key actors
in the value chain. In addition, some of our partners, such
as Mastercard, Visa and Dejamobile, will host dedicated
workshop sessions on the subject.
BEAST MAGAZINE #16