Colombo Innovation Tower launches inaugural ‘Innovation Broadcast’ with ‘Fintech Futures’ program

Presented by the Colombo Innovation Tower (CIT) and endorsed by the Fintech Association of Sri Lanka, ‘Fintech Futures’ is a session that invites the Lankan banking and financial sector to delve right into the future of banking, payment management and investment in connection to tech and consumer trends with its ‘Fintech Futures’ session on 1st November 2019. It will uncover the new notion of money from the mindset of the 2025 consumer, and new ways to use technology to augment financial services to meet their needs. Fintech Futures will underline new opportunities and the challenges set by the digital economy, and the ways in which global financial disruptors are connecting with a new breed of consumers who prioritise convenience and security as well as digital personalisation and true human interactions. 

It marks more than one year since the introduction of open banking, making the consumer central to the banking experience; Facebook’s recent white paper on its new cryptocurrency–Libra, heralds a new chapter for integrating the block-chain into mainstream financial culture. With the Fintech market predicted to expand at a 74% CAGR globally, the Lankan banking and financial sector is long overdue to strip away all semblance to what it was, to rethink and refocus its service and product offer. Sri Lanka’s leading work catalyst space CIT announced ‘Fintech Futures’—a focused session responding to this need. CIT mentioned that the Fintech Futures broadcast intends to create a roadmap for banks, financial specialists and businesses to navigate this new world of uncertainty and possibility, where issues of trust come face to face with all the openness that the digital economy has to offer. The session is filled with key trends, case studies and consumer insight as well as the strategic implications needed to remain one step ahead in the future financial landscape. Drawing from the insights of the world’s leading trend forecasters at the Future Laboratory in the UK, along with research that connect to Asian markets and global opportunities that the regional financial sectors can tap into, ‘Fintech Futures’ speaks directly to the local financial industry, including banks, credit-cards, insurance companies, accountancy firms, consumer-finance companies, stock brokerages, investment funds and even individual financial managers. 

“We want Sri Lanka to lead”

The Fintech Futures session is presented with the idea of taking Sri Lankan financial sector to take the lead in South Asia for combining tech, design thinking and innovation. The session is therefore structured to include fintech market trends and outlooks predominantly for banking, investment and payments related products and services. Therefore, it will include insights linking to the future of banking techniques and services, products and strategies that lead investment services of tomorrow, and how the management and accessibility of payment gateways will take radical new turns through technology. The strategic implications of these shifts to the consumer psyche and the early disruptors who will capitalise the opportunities will also be highlighted in the session. Fintech Futures will also underline how the ecosystem play will be an influential force in financial services, discussing how networks and collaborations with smart tech companies and mobile-friendly tech packages can allow big businesses to distribute accessibility more readily to consumers and build intimacy. 

Fintech for financial inclusion

Fintech Futures will also discuss some of the key shifts driving the inclusivity in financial services, with insights on new opportunities that meet a real need, like digital innovations empowering unbanked, underserved and vulnerable consumers in developing nations’ markets. With readily-reliable cryptocurrencies will enter the Asian markets through companies like Facebook, markets like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India where the penetration of internet and mobile phones have preceded availability of open finance just might adopt cryptocurrencies as stable means of exchange, and even a better proposition compared to the much more volatile local currencies. The session will also discuss unseen factors like the rise of Asian female billionaires, which opens up new opportunities for companies that handle portfolios of high-net-worth individuals and growing financial markets, like women.

How big data, design and AI will open new perspectives for Fintech

Tech and design thinking are a merger that allows financial-services to remain a very human-centric business. “We already know that the younger generations are very interested in the personal side of banking. But I think this personal service aspect of banking is almost lost now. The consumer often feels lost, and we need to have a deeper connection with them,” said Design Corp Managing Director Lin Gong-Deustchmann, who is also a panellist at Fintech Futures. She said that the Sri Lankan mindset around the role of money is changing, with a new focus balance between spending, saving and investing. “We have new insight into how we can empower consumers to take back control of their spending, saving and investment habits, gain greater transparency and confidence to work with financial services like banks or investment management companies,” she said.

In addition to Lin, Fintech Futures will also include discussions and viewpoints by Dialog Axiata Group COO Dr. Rainer Deutschmann, and University of Hong Kong Faculty of Business & Economics associate professor Dr. Tuan Q. Phan. It will be presented by the Director of Public Works, cross-disciplinary educator and design thinker Alain Parizeau. The Colombo Innovation Tower (CIT) is hosting this session to drive human-centred innovation and design thinking to industries that have a significant impact on the Lankan economy—such as financial services and products. CIT founder Linda Speldewinde said, “The Colombo Innovation Tower is poised to be the epicentre for innovation in South Asia. It is founded on the philosophy that design and innovation can impact transformative development for Sri Lanka and the region by bringing together a network that utilises creativity and new ideas to reinvent industries, realign products and generate services with commercial relevance.” She added that Fintech Futures is part of a series of knowledge and intelligence sharing sessions that CIT will continue to offer driving industry-wide impact through design and innovation led thinking. To register your teams for Innovation Broadcast: Fintech Futures and to find out more about the Colombo Innovation Tower (CIT) ecosystem reach us on [email protected] or 076 982 7775.