GOT IT COVERED: INSIGHTS FROM FINTECH WEEK LONDON 2019

I just came back from London FinTech Week which was held for the 6th year in a row. This international event brings together key influencers and decision makers in the FinTech sector in London and beyond, all eager to learn of the latest FinTech trends globally - technological developments and disruptors, the changing legal and economic landscape, and how it all impacts on a global scale.

Following are some of my key takeaways from the event:

Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Applications

The conference was dominated by discussions and applications of blockchain and cryptocurrency and the effect Libra would have on the whole financial market. How to get the population to adopt cryptocurrency, how to educate around what it is and how to make it simpler and more accessible.  

As somebody who was raised in the finance technology space, I see a lot of potential applications of blockchain where it can be adopted in FinTech, InsurTech, RegTech, etc. However, the general population still finds blockchain and cryptocurrency to be difficult to understand and grasp. Keeping it simple and educating our youth is the way forward in mass adoption.

The Real Threat to Old School Banking

Much has changed in the financial world in the past few years. Even the word Fintech, which was not even used a few years back is now a well adopted term. One of the main discussions was around the future of banks and financial institutions as FinTech startups gain more dominance and bite large chunks of the financial pie. While banks have a lot more capital than FinTechs do, FinTechs are definitely a lot closer to their customers - something that banks have traditionally been missing. Technology companies have been able to compile a lot of data on their customers. They have greater ability to make an impact on the financial space than banks do due to the traditional structures and lack of technology despite them having bigger budgets and more capital. The flip side of this is that banks might not have the technology but they definitely have the resources to acquire that technology and implement it internally. Ultimately, banks and financial institutions will have to re-define themselves and fast in order to keep up.

Truth to be said, old school banking have bigger mammoths than FinTech threatening their dominance. The real threat is indeed in the large incumbents like Amazon because of the huge amount of data they possess. All the giant companies of the world already offer basic financial services and have their own payments products as well. We already have Amazon pay, Google pay, Apple pay, Alipay, Wechat pay, to name just a few. They have a greater understanding of their customers than banks do and their big strength lies in the data they possess, so similarly to the case of FinTech redefining the financial industry, we need to think about what will the effect be on the financial space, when these giants offer more products to their customers.

The biggest digital platforms of the world hold the data, the resources, the technology and have a more clearly defined customer focus that banks simply lack.

InsurTech leaders panel 

• Pollyanna Dean, Partner, Simmons & Simmons LLP
• Nick Pester, Partner, Head Of Insurance & InsurTech, Capital Law
• Manjit Rana, Managing Director, Corporate Innovation, InsurTech Business, Rainmaking Innovation Ltd 
• Will Thorne, Head of EMEA, Specialty and Lloyd's Ventures, SCOR

InsurTech is to insurance as Fintech is to banking. There are many evolutions in the insurance space but we are only seeing the start of emerging InsurTech players. Discussions evolved around the fact that if insurance companies don’t get their act together and put their customers first, they will only be seen as cash cows. The big Giants like Amazon are definite threats as they know their customers and are data driven and may as well start offering insurance themselves. In the UK region, some of the major blockchain projects that pop up are actually around insurance which clearly shows how the industry is advancing. According to the panel, there is however not a real player yet that is changing the insurance industry as InsurTechs are using the current insurance network to build on. It is just a matter of time though as we will see a lot of innovation in this space in the coming months/years. This is exemplified by Cover Genius which have significantly expanded globally over the past 12 months to offer custom-made / customer-specific solutions to its global partners and the eventual end customers.

Smarter Insurance

We believe customers should be getting insurance from their favourite online companies. Since 2014, we haven’t stopped rethinking insurance. 

For more information on the FinTech landscape and creating an ancillary revenue stream through insurance, go to covergenius.com or simply contact me: stephen.p@covergenius.com