Financial technology has an immense influence on a variety of industries and respectively on our lives. A significant transition to a new model of how things work could be observed in the way financial services operate, how customers’ expectations are shaped, but let’s not forget the change of revenues of banks themselves. And as we talk the fintech influence is exponentially growing. Its worth is estimated to be $4.7 T, according to Goldman Sachs. Today there are more than 10,605 fintech startups in North and South America, a total of 9,311 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and 6,129 in the Asia Pacific region according to statista.com.
No wonder why fintech is chosen as a central topic of the Townhall CEE tech conference 2021 together with the emerging field of e-health. The purpose of the digital conference is to provide a shared platform for the industry to discuss technology’s role in shaping our world. Co-organised by the UK’s Department for International Trade and the tech business consultancy Patterns Technology – founded by ex-Revolut country lead, Eduard Tsvetanov, the free-access virtual event will bring together some of Europe’s trending sectoral companies. The event will take place on 23rd February, registration in advance is required.
“The UK is a global leader in FinTech, and one of the world’s leading centres for FinTech growth, finance and innovation. The emergence of Central and Eastern Europe as an engine for digital transformation is hugely exciting, opening up a wealth of opportunities for partnership, investment and growth with the UK. I am looking forward to The Townhall as an opportunity to build strong partnerships between local players and UK companies,” said Dr. Rob Dixon, Her Majesty’s Ambassador for Bulgaria.
Fintech 360 view: From business to community
Fintech disrupts a variety of sectors with which we as consumers interact on a regular basis. Newborn services and products appeared to ease our lives, some of them we may already accept as given like online payment, anything digital you use to apply for a loan, neobanks, charity online platforms, and so much more. The first panel of the Townhall event will put the spotlight on how fintech can ease end-customers’ lives. Among the speakers there will be representatives from well-known brands such as Revolut, Transferwise, moderated by Filip Genov, Founder of F27, a digital transformation company, that together with Software Group claim to have created one of the world’s first actual mobile platforms for supply chain finance. The main topic for the discussion will be the current status of the fintech sector in Europe, while looking into the future.
For the past years, all eyes were mainly on the fintech business to community development. But things have quickly changed and now business to business segment is ready to steal the show with services like payment infrastructure, customer onboarding, financial operations, business lending, data sharing and compliance, etc. The second panel of the Townhall conference will give another perspective to fintech in CEE and will meet us with entrepreneurs like Konstantin Bezuhanov, founder of Evrotrust Technologies. Evrotrust is the first trust service provider in Bulgaria that has successfully completed the certification procedure of a wide range of qualified trust services such as issuing certificates for e-signatures and e-seals, time-stamps, qualified website authentication certificates, etc. David Pavliska, Country manager at Viva Wallet in the Czech Republic is another representative from a startup, founded in Southeast Europe. The Viva Wallet was given a start in 2000 in Greece and facilitates multi-channel payments through cloud-based systems with its total funding of over $18M.
Tech & Healthcare: imagine the future
Covid-19 is yet another disruptor, which accelerated the need for well-developed e-health products and services. The need for remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology is growing. Health monitoring and research via mobile applications is getting more popular and the potential of IoT application in healthcare is huge: like cost reduction, improved treatment that allows evidence-based decision-making in the process of patient treatment, faster disease diagnosis, etc. The third panel of the Townhall conference will explore the role of technology and R&D in the healthcare sector today and how it could look like in the digital era.
Put Yourself in Investors’ Shoes
A topic that will probably always prick up the ears of an entrepreneur is how to get investors to love their startup. The last conference panel will offer in-depth insights about investing in startups from CEE, drawn from the very source – experienced investors that will share what are their criteria for validating an idea. One of the speakers in this panel is Max Gurvits, Managing Partner at Vitosha Venture Partners, who has an active role in the Sofia entrepreneurship community almost since its very beginning and has contributed for its development by connecting Bulgaria with Silicon Valley, London, and the rest of Eastern Europe.
The Townhall fintech and e-health conference in February will be the first edition of a continuing event series, dedicated to the role of technology in shaping our world.
Learn more about the conference and sign up here
