One of our favourites was Wednesday’s first event, a discussion between Fidelity International Managing Partner Alokik Advani and Talle Co-Founder Bianca Lopes on “When should we aim to build a global financial brand?” Their answer, of course, was that it depends. It was interesting to listen to this conversation between two industry experts as they emphasised the need for fintech firms going global, and their investors, to recognise regional variation.
When working out how to take their success to the next level, fintechs should acknowledge that different aspects of their products will resonate in different markets, dependent on culturally contingent consumer behaviours. The challenge for a brand is to balance this sensitivity to variation with the need to remain inclusive to everyone it targets.
On Thursday we welcomed the webinar “Where should we allocate tech spend to make the biggest impact?” which considered the critical need to modernise the core infrastructure of financial services to facilitate open data. Emmalyn Shaw, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures showed how open data can have a positive impact on both institutions and consumers by ensuring financial health.
This presentation explored how upgrades to tech infrastructure can buttress the four pillars of financial management: spending, saving, borrowing, and planning. Research by Flourish has shown that open data for finance systems could also have significant macroeconomic benefits in countries such as India, which could see as much as a 4-5% share of GDP impact in 2030.
Last but not least, we attended the talk from Rebecca Mann of Western Union telling us the five most important things which women working in financial services can do to raise their visibility. While we would not want to spoil the full list for those who have not yet watched, we were particularly interested in Rebecca’s focus on the importance of clear communication.
Whether in the boardroom or by the water-cooler (when we eventually return to those times), communicating effectively with stakeholders is an absolute must. Indeed, one of the most widely reported downsides of working remotely has been the increased difficulty of getting messages across.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time at MoneyFest, and are grateful to all the speakers and to the organisers for facilitating such insightful events. We were also pleased to see the theme of communication being an important thread running through many of the issues discussed.
Indeed, with increasing digitalisation and corresponding regulation pushing financial services into an exciting state of flux, it has never been more important for organisations involved in the sector to be seen to be abreast of the latest development. At Sapience, with our strong track record of servicing financial clients large and small, we can help you do exactly that.
You can find out what we are doing to help businesses within the finance sector here or get in touch for more information.
