Future of Fintech

Future of Fintech

January 31 2018

Future of Fintech Event, 30'th January 2018 Recap

I will begin with saying, what a fantastic event I attended yesterday with special thanks to Eoin Fitzgerald of Enterprise Ireland who organised such an impressive event. I was exposed to a roomful of the who’s who of Fintech not only in Ireland but on an international basis. There were more than 100 top people from all over the world including places like Mumbai, Sydney, Toronto, Chicago, New York etc. in attendance.

We kicked off with Michael D’arcy, Minister of State for Financial Services and Insurance, who spoke about how 70% of the IFS2020 job target was achieved with 2 years to go. Irish owned IFS are scaling and have almost 10,000 employed with international sales more than €1 billion.Next, I watched in awe as the blog extraordinaire and world-renowned Fintech/Financial Services expert and commentator, Chris Skinner spoke passionately about Fintech. He discussed how “everyone on earth can transact with anyone else on earth” and how “everyone can become entrepreneurial using a mobile phone”.

Fintech has broken the traditional front, middle and back office of a Financial institution apart and as a result many different companies have formed where they do individual parts very well. Banks have traditionally been product focused as opposed to customer focused…”People want experiences”.

“Only 6% of bank board directors have any tech experience” – shocking fact considering the world we now live in. It was clear that legacy bank systems will just not serve into the future.

Chris also speak about people’s fear of automation and AI – in truth 1 in 3 jobs will be automated by 2025..”We need to teach children things machines cannot learn like empathy, art etc. There is a clear sense that this is the future of the job market – when questioned later on this Chris spoke about how jobs involving human empathy i.e. mental illness counselling will be the way forward for our children.

We were presented with three very impressive and excellent panel of speakers.

The first panel, moderated by Ruth McCarthy was regarding the Future of Payments. Ruth asked each company to speak about their strengths as a company and weaknesses or threats. The sentiment was clear in that the main threats to the payments industry are competition and technological change. For some of the more established organisations, legacy systems are a key blocker as they just do not respond fast enough for the millennials.Next up was the panel moderated by Peter Oakes of Fintech Ireland. The message was clear, there is no escaping the increase in regulation in the financial sector. The impressive panel spoke passionately on how they work collaboratively with Financial institutions and regulatory bodies.

The third and final panel discussion of the day moderated by Laura Clifford, Industry Partnership Manager, ADAPT Centre was around the future technologies for Fintech. The key takeaways were around how established FS firms need to use technologies to educate and who customers how to avoid fees for example – this will invoke trust. Everyone agreed that the customer journey needed to be at the forefront of everything. Elly from Deutshe bank commented on how “Financial Services haven’t had their Uber moment yet”.

To conclude, we need to keep on top of our technology and always think about how we can put the customer journey first. Taking a collaborative approach in the future where both the entrepreneurial characteristics and domain knowledge are in existence, will the key to success for both FinTech and FS firms.

All in all, there were many impressive speakers, all of whom are highly credible, so it was a pleasure to attend. The overall sentiment was clear – Dublin and Ireland are in a better position to become a hub for firms to base their European operation here post Brexit.  

At Top Tier Recruitment, we are passionate about the Fintech and Financial Services Industries and specialise specifically in these spaces. To hear about opportunities or to discuss how we can assist you with building your new team in Ireland, contact info@toptierrecruitment.com call Laura/Paul on 01 564 9602

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