How are banks and retailers, payments companies and card schemes responding as they start to slowly move down the value chain and lose the touch-point with the end customer? Then there are the mobile wallet players – the likes of Google and Samsung. What does it mean for the players that have invested so much in these wallet products and how can they drive frequency and meaningful interactions with their customers? Naturally, we’ll be covering all the key areas that Money20/20 traditionally does, from artificial intelligence (AI) to risk and security, legal and regulatory. In addition, we’ll be covering open banking in detail and benchmarking innovation as well as blockchain and Bitcoin. FF: Is there anything those of us who have visited Money20/20 Europe and Las Vegas will notice as being different about the show? PP: One of the things that we’re trialling for the first time at this event is having a key theme that runs all the way through day one and day two from the main stage to a track room. Naturally, we’ll cover other topics but the rise of the tech platforms is a key theme. We start off with some of the banks and how they’re responding to the threat from the tech giants. Piyush Gupta, chief executive and director of DBS Group, will be talking about competing in a new financial services playing field and how DBS is responding to the rise of the tech platforms. Then we have Derek White from BBVA talking about how banks can be a threat to the big tech platforms. We have the Japanese giant Rakuten, which has its own social media platform in Viber, an ecommerce business and a fintech business, giving its perspective on the future of financial services. That will roll into what Ant Financial is doing. Listening to Ant Financial’s chief technology officer is probably one of the sessions I’m looking forward to most, because this was the guy that built the Alipay wallet back in 2008. From that main stage we move on to a whole day of track sessions that bring to life what some of the card technology players and the US
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giants – WhatsApp, Google and Amazon – are doing, plus a whole host of the rising stars in the region, from Grab to Go-Jek. Many of those seem to be expanding their proposition from their core models, whether it’s ride hailing, or social media or ecommerce, into financial services and payments. That narrative plays all the way through to day two where we’ll have the chief technology officer of ICICI Bank alongside fintech guru Chris Skinner. We’ll also have Stripe on the main stage, talking platform economies, and Tencent discussing its social media platform and how it’s looking to build that out. One of the highlights on day two will be Ant Financial hosting a technology forum on site. It’s a three-hour block of sessions, hosted by Chris Skinner and includes a number of Ant Financial domain experts, which will cover blockchain, AI, security,
Singapore wasn’t really anywhere on the fintech map in 2015; now it’s one of the most important hubs in Asia, if not the world Internet of Things and computing. These are the key areas that Ant Financial is investing in to develop its tech and platform capabilities. It should be a really good deep dive. We’re also trialling a new stage, which will provide a place for intimate Q&As with some of the keynotes after they’ve finished their main stage presentations. We’ll also have a few sessions to celebrate failure! I know that sounds strange, but in some parts of the region we’ve noticed a big stigma attached to failure and taking risks. To that end, we wanted to celebrate entrepreneurs that have failed spectacularly and then gone on to succeed. The founder of Viva Republica, for example, had a number of failed ventures before building the super-successful Viva Republica and now he’s even attracted investment from PayPal. He’d never had the opportunity to talk about those early failures. Now, hopefully, he will inspire others to take that leap of faith and learn from his setbacks.
You hear some sad stories of entrepreneurs who have failed in their first business and just given up in part due to societal pressures. If we can create a little bit of change around social attitudes to business failure that would be pretty cool, but just to get some exposure and awareness could make a difference. We also have workshops running throughout the event to drive deep learning experiences on specific topics. In addition, we’re hosting a large number of meetups, which will be led by some of our speakers from our stages, addressing topics that might not have been covered in a session and, most importantly, to encourage networking and chance encounters. Serendipity is the spice of life! FF: As well as Asia this year, you have Money20/20 China coming up soon. Is an entire show dedicated to one country an acknowledgement of the sheer scale of what’s happening in China? PP: Yes. Although Money20/20 Asia will cover aspects of China, we felt that with all the activity going on in pretty much the largest fintech market in the world, that it warranted its own event. While the likes of Ant Financial, Tencent, and China UnionPay will travel outside of China, there’s a whole raft of companies that wanted an event held in and for the domestic market. We’ve had a lot of support from the Government and many of the players, such as LianLianPay. We’ll also bring our US community along as there’s been strong interest to get involved. FF: Finally, you’ve chosen a space theme for the show… why? PP: Each year we try to outdo ourselves in terms of the thematic. Last year, it was superheroes. Space – the idea of new frontiers and opportunities – seemed to fit nicely with the launch of Money20/20 Asia. It’s created additional opportunities for us – one of which is working with a charity called Space For Humanity, which is trying to democratise space travel by sending ordinary people up there. Money20/20 delegates and those that engage with us before the event will be invited to submit a three-minute video telling us why they should be on that trip. We will announce at the show the person who gets fast-tracked to the final and has a great chance of going into space. How cool is that? Issue 8 |
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