Developing the FinTech Ecosystem: The challenges of regulation, innovation and digitalisation

Between 2011 and 2015, global investment in FinTech increased eightfold. Resulting from the use of enabling digital technologies, new products and processes are being developed by “traditional” providers and by ever-rising numbers of FinTech startups. While policy-makers are gradually creating the necessary conditions to strengthen this digital transformation of financial services, numerous policy issues and unanswered questions remain. Against that background, CEPS, ECRI and ECMI are jointly organising their Annual Conference on “Developing the FinTech ecosystem: the challenges of regulation, innovation and digitalisation”. 

Given the significant impact of digitalisation on all types of products and consumers, the objective of this conference is to provide a platform for an exchange of good practices across the various supervisors and providers of financial services, hereby contributing to greater regulatory consistency across the different segments of financial services. As such, the scope is relatively wide and intends to include retail financial services (credit, savings and payments), as well as investments and insurance. The programme will feature key stakeholders in the financial services sector and high-level speakers from the European institutions, national authorities, the financial industry, FinTech startups and academia.

This conference will first explore how and to which extent big data can benefit customers and providers alike. Innovation will also be debated with respect to payment systems, especially by assessing the winners and losers of the vast regulatory package for payments that is gradually implemented. Finally, each year, one specific market and type of technology will be singled out for in-depth coverage. This year’s conference will focus on blockchain and its impact on securities value chain.