Top 10 Takeaways From FinTech LIVE 2024
FinTech LIVE brings together the world’s fintech leaders, organisations, CFOs, policymakers and start-ups to explore the future of our ever-changing industry.
With events taking place virtually and in person across the year, our event series provides all attendees with access to the latest cutting-edge technologies and case studies that are transforming the fintech market globally.
Throughout our global event series, FinTech LIVE acts as a platform for executives to network, share their latest practices and discover how they will enhance their financial operations in the future.
Discover 10 takeaways from FinTech LIVE below.
“Early on we realised that it was going to be a long time before institutional blockchains were ready.”
Featuring at FinTech LIVE Singapore, Shawn Douglass, Co-founder and CEO of Amberdata, highlighted the importance of digital assets data for financial organisations.
Shawn delves into the journey of Amberdata to highlight its impressive growth: “At the very beginning, we saw institutional blockchains as being a potentially shared infrastructure between banks and companies, enabling ledger transparency and automating smart contracts.
“Fast forward seven years later, that's largely come true with JP Morgan HSBC and Goldman Sacha among other large banks, which are now embracing the enterprise blockchain.
“Early on we realised that it was going to be a long time before institutional blockchains were ready. So we pivoted and started to support public, open blockchains and centralised and decentralised exchanges, knowing that data would be needed to build businesses and inform decisions.”
Amberdata has been building ever since, and now Shawn says the company’s growth journey since has been ‘mindblowing’.
“Smartphones are not merely devices, it’s a gateway to a customer’s digital universe.”
Kashif Khan, Vice President of Transaction Banking, Payments, Channels & Global Banking Technology Service Management at Standard Chartered, Khang Ngoc Pham, Chief Financial Officer at Home Credit Vietnam and Kannan Rajaratnam, Regional Director of Payments & Customer Operations at ZALORA Group featured on our ‘Digital Payments’ panel at FinTech LIVE Singapore that delved into the impact of digital payments.
The panel highlights the comprehensive digital transformation that is happening across many industries and Kashif notes that "the surrounding ecosystem is also getting heavily digital paperless in terms of all the moving parts which support processing of a transaction or a payment".
“The unbanked and underbanked population in many regions who did not have access to the basic financial services can now become an inclusive part of the banked population and can now have access to the basic banking services,” Kashif continues.
All of the panellists agree that the growth of digital payments is transforming the relationship between businesses and consumers and enhancing the e-commerce market.
“Technology has made us very social, but has it made us antisocial also?”
Amnah Ajmal, Group EVP at Mastercard, delivered a keynote presentation at FinTech LIVE Dubai that explored market expansion, accelerating growth and partnerships in the fintech field.
Amnah highlights the impact technology has had on several industries, the importance of avoiding bias with AI and the social impact technology has had on our society.
In an ever-changing industry, Amnah stresses the importance of effective leadership in the future of the fintech field: "We have to learn to surround ourselves with talented, smarter people than us and better than us because with so much happening around technology, it's impossible to keep up to pace with everything.”
“Customers today are looking for faster, more reliable and seamless digital experiences.”
Srinivasan Sampath, Acting Group Chief Technology Officer for First Abu Dhabi Bank, and Amr Naguib, AVP, Head of Digital Banking Ecosystem, Innovation and Digital Payments at Mashreq Egypt featured on our ‘Digital & Open Banking’ panel discussion at FinTech LIVE Dubai that explored the significant impact open banking is having on financial services in the GCC region.
Srinivasan draws attention to the significant rise of open banking in the area, noting: "Open banking is going to be one of the critical capabilities that the financial system needs to open up the banking platform across the ecosystem.
“Because as you know, the digital ecosystem in every geography and every country is accelerating and really getting up to speed on various capabilities.
“This is a great initiative, which is going to be very, very helpful for the entire environment and the financial ecosystem."
"Fintechs are capturing the attention of younger generations, and traditional banks need to modernise or lose relevance.”
Nabil Bawa, Managing Director of Financial Services at NTT DATA and Philippe Daoust, Vice President and Managing Director at the National Bank of Canada featured on our ‘Future of FinTech’ panel at FinTech LIVE New York that explored the future of the fintech industry and the need to tackle the current issues our field faces today.
The panel discussion highlights how innovations like strategic AI and fintech partnerships are essential to embrace to thrive in the future of our dynamic industry.
"Traditional banks must invest in AI and data analytics or risk losing their competitive edge, especially with open banking reducing their data advantage,” Nabil says.
Philippe echoes the importance of AI, explaining: "With open banking and AI, we’re looking at a future where real-time competition in retail banking will enhance customer experiences.”
"The majority of people surveyed say they feel overwhelmed, anxious, or fearful about their retirement.”
Speaking at FinTech LIVE New York, Aynsley Toole, VP of Product Management and Chief Product Owner at ADP, explored how we can make retirement more human in an engaging keynote presentation.
She highlights how factors like a move away from traditional pensions, a greater number of retirees and longer life expectancies are increasing the pressure on individuals to look after their retirement savings.
"Knowing that you work at a company for your entire life and have a pension and know exactly what you're going to get after you've retired is really not a reality for most people these days," says Aynsley.
By drawing attention to ADP’s retirement applications, Aynsley explains how the organisation strives to reduce financial anxiety around retirement and the related planning processes: “We help guide them by showing them what people are at similar ages in similar geographies with similar incomes are saving.”
"Constant communication with customers is key.”
Eric Hussey, SVP and Chief Information Security Officer at Finastra, Mark Turi, Associate Director of Connected Experiences at Verizon and Marwan Semida, Senior Business Development Manager at Sumsub featured on our ‘FinTech Fraud & ID Verification’ panel at FinTech LIVE New York that explored the evolution of challenges in the fraud and ID systems.
The three speakers stressed the need to stay aware of new tactics to enhance fraud prevention and explained how a layered approach to security combined with internal training with regulatory alignment will enhance identity verification in the fintech field.
"The main challenge currently is keeping up with the rapidly evolving fraud tactics and ensuring compliance with varying global regulations," Marwan says.
“It can be very easy to get sucked into the hype around AI.”
Speaking at FinTech LIVE London Global Summit, Jason Maude, Chief Technology Advocate at Starling Bank, delved into the key principles organisations need to consider when implementing AI.
His presentation highlighted how effective AI implementation requires careful consideration, robust data quality and engineering and constant vigilance.
“You have to have excellent monitoring of your models” Jason urges, explaining that usage patterns, consumer behaviour and external conditions are constantly evolving.
AI models can quickly become irrelevant or even harmful if they aren’t continuously observed and updated.
"We've all become very comfortable with the kind of digital world.”
Delivering a keynote presentation at FinTech LIVE London Global Summit, Gareth Wilson, Executive Vice President of Capgemini, explored how the payment industry has shifted over the past decade due to regulation, investment and fintech competition.
He highlights the evident shift to a digital-first approach and explains how this transformation has been propelled by advancements in regulation, such as the implementation of faster payments in the UK since 2008, and the widespread adoption of open banking.
Gareth cites HMRC’s use of open banking APIs for self-assessment payments as an example of innovation driven by regulatory frameworks.
Looking to the future, Gareth identifies instant payments, open finance and data utilisation as key drivers for the future of payments.
“It’s not about the technology, it’s about how we deploy AI within that customer experience and what guardrails we want to have in place.”
Speaking at FinTech LIVE London Global Summit, Gerald Pullen, Managing Director for Business Transformation at Concentrix Catalyst, explored the transformative potential of AI in the fintech industry.
Gerald explores the dual benefits of AI for customers and employees, highlighting its ability to streamline processes and increase productivity.
“Gone are the days where they’re (advisors) wrestling with multiple systems, trying to figure out how to interrogate six different legacy systems, where they’re trying to have an authentic conversation and really listen to the customer,” Gerald explains.
“Training packages for new starters used to take maybe a week to pull together. We now pull them together in a matter of hours,” Gerald shares.
His keynote presentation highlights how AI adoption must be balanced to include diverse perspectives and human expertise effectively to tackle potential biases in data.
Essential diary dates for 2025
Discover the essential diary dates for FinTech Magazine.
To follow FinTech LIVE on LinkedIn, click here.
To enter for the Global FinTech Awards, click here.
2025 diary dates:
- FinTech LIVE Singapore | 25 February
- FinTech LIVE Dubai | 6 May
- FinTech LIVE New York | 17 June
- FinTech LIVE London | 7-8 October
- The Global FinTech Awards | 7 October
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