Money20/20 Europe has come to a close for another year. With 380 speakers sharing over 175 pieces of content across seven stages, it’s safe to say 2022 has been a year of incredible insights into the fintech industry.
The Fintech Times team got to sit in on some amazing conversations, both on stage and off, and wanted to share some of our favourite quotes of the last few days with you!
On Money20/20
Scarlett Sieber, chief strategy and growth officer at Money20/20 said: “We’ve got a whole ecosystem here from global leaders to new challengers from tech giants to up-and-coming startups. Money20/20 is the place where the industry comes together over the course of three incredible days.”
President of Money20/20, Tracey Davies, said: “43 per cent of speakers on the stage are women, compared to 11 per cent 4 years ago. No one walks out on this stage because of what they look like, they walk out because they really know their stuff – they just happened to be women.”
Rogier Schoute, Mollie’s chief product officer said: “I’ve been attending Money20/20 since about 2014 when it was in Vegas and then it came to Europe. I’ve always enjoyed this show. More because there’s this condensed opportunity to meet tonnes of people and you always pick up a couple of new insights around what’s playing in the industry right now. And that’s the most refreshing thing – it’s kind of like you step out of your daily focus and you can look around and say ‘hey, so that is what’s happening’ and that’s again the case this year.”
On how to make the most out of Money20/20, Roland Selmer, Chief Product Officer, Yapily said: “Speak to companies outside of your comfort zone, it might spark a new idea or a new opinion.”
Olivia Minnock, editor of Fintech Alliance, added: “Ask silly questions. Don’t be afraid to ask people your questions. I was asking what embedded finance was before and felt really silly until I realised no one else knew what it was either. Have those conversations, be confident and approach people.”
From the Stage
On Starling’s growth, CEO Anne Boden said: “When I first started Starling it was to build a bank like no other, but it was really important that we used our own technology platform…The vision is that Starling will be an international global tech company that will just happen to own a bank in Europe. The technology will own the bank, not the other way around.”
Charlotte Hogg, CEO of Visa Europe, said: “The journey towards open banking in Europe has been happening for a while, but it’s really now and we believe that financial services can be better”
On how to move forward, Deniz Guven, CEO & co-founder of PlatformXIT, said: “I’m a big fan of Liverpool and Liverpool fans always say ‘never walk alone’, right? And you should never walk alone. It’s super important in our business as well. Especially, if you’re coming from really deep and if you don’t have a customer base, the infrastructure or distribution channels, then you have to go with partners.”
Mark Walker, editorial director of The Fintech Times said: “If you don’t want to get involved in compliance, don’t get into fintech.”
On greenwashing and ESG, Monika Liikamaa, co-CEO of Enfuce, said: “Everyone is full of BS and excuses on how to implement stuff. Commit, decide and let’s just f**king do it.”
Dr. Herbert Wigwe, group MD, Access Corporation, said: “Change starts with you. That’s the only way we can change businesses, countries and continents. Let’s focus on great leaders. Male or female. And make sure that there’s no bias.”
Alice Tapper, financial inclusion advocate, said on buy now, pay later: “New legislation should focus on protection, education. Regulators should have the foresight to define pre-regulation on anticipated new payment technology.”
Iana Dimitrova, CEO at OpenPayd said: Should regulators be setting the technical standards for certain regulatory financial services – absolutely not! The knowledge and the expectations of all of our customers is far ahead of the understanding and the technical proficiency that regulators can certainly afford.”
Lucy Demery of Barclays shared the following advice to founders seeking capital – “Stay focused on your core mission, be clear on how you articulate your story to investors and why your leadership team can be trusted to deliver the dream. Investors aren’t taking that on faith anymore- they want to see a real track record.”
John Collision, co-founder and president of Stripe, said: “Open Banking works. You just need to take it further from an exclusion point of view.”
Marc Massar, CIO, Channels Transformation – HSBC ‘’The whole point of trying to build a consistent customer experience is about building consistent interfaces.”
During a panel on crypto FOMO, Curtis Ting, EMEA managing director, Kraken, said: “The real FOMO should be felt by exchanges and new providers and participants who are perhaps a little late to recognise that adoption means more regulation.”
Charlotte Hogg, CEO of Visa Europe, said: “The core of anything in payments has to be the investment in resilience in cybersecurity fraud and goodness knows, we know how important that is today.”
On the dark side of crypto, Megan Nilsson, Crypto Megan, said: “Crypto had the stigma of the silk road – it was associated with very nefarious characters. It had that stigma from very early on but we’ve come a long way from that point.”
Giving her thoughts on valuations, Eileen Burbidge from Passion Capital said: “The markets have been so irrational over the last two years, a macro event like everyone going out and buying crypto could trigger a nice run in the market that could trigger another boom time again.”
Andrew Ellis, CEO at Mettle gave his best advice to challenger banks: “As a traditional bank, you will get bashed. You get bashed by customers on social media, by politicians… you’ve got to develop a thick skin.”
Ruth Spratt, UK Country Manager, Zip, said on the BNPL ‘revolution’: “When you really boil it down, it’s not really a revolution. I remember growing up and my mum buying our Christmas presents from a catalogue and paying in weekly instalments. I think we have to be really clear that (BNPL) is credit, and it’s alongside a lot of other forms of credit in the market as well.”
Iana Dimitrova, CEO at Openpayd, said: I think the regulators should be setting the principles of the playing field. But should they be setting the technical standards for certain regulated financial services? My answer would be no, absolutely not.”
Charith Medis, industry lead, AWS said: “Can I use online chat with my bank and then go into a branch and seamlessly continue that conversation? No. We still have some way to go with omni-channel banking.”
Feeling the Money20/20 FOMO? Or simply want to relive the event? Check out our daily event summaries here, and our round-up of announcements made in Amsterdam here.
