It a great pleasure to have offline conversations. This was confirmed by the attendees, who were without doubt eager to have meetings and connect. Still (insert sad face here), banks were pretty hard to find on the floor and this year’s Money20/20 was mostly a get-together for fintech companies.
Over three days, I had quite a lot of interesting meetings with the best thinkers in fintech and payments. Here are some key takeaways:
One recurrent idea: Open Banking is (still) a hot industry – and a very promising one
The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the ongoing digitisation of all industries; the emergence of APIs and real-time payments means consumers are now demanding speed and convenience in payments.
If you are wondering what’s the status of Open Banking and where it’s headed, we put together some of the industry’s key players to find out straight from the source.
Francesco Simoneschi, Co-Founder and CEO at TrueLayer, Dmitrii Barbasura, Co-Founder & CEO at Salt Edge, Helen Child, Founder of Open Banking Excellence (OBE), Rune Mai, CEO & Co-founder at Aiia, Daniel Kjellén, CEO and Founder at Tink, and Tatiana Rozoum, Co-founder & COO at Fintecture, share bite-sized insights:
Consolidation in the fintech industry – or the race is on between open payments and cards
Over the past yearr, there has been a trend of consolidation in the fintech industry, with many incumbent players, such as Visa and Mastercard, engaging in a large number of acquisitions of startup companies.
The M&A market in the Open Banking space was quite robust in 2021. Open Banking platform Tink acquired Germany-based Open Banking platform FinTecSystems. Shortly thereafter, Visa announced its acquisition of Tink, in a deal subject to regulatory approval. And very recently, Mastercard has entered into an agreement to acquire Aiia.
These moves are not only a testament of the Open Banking industry going mainstream and how strategically important Open Banking is for the future of financial services, but it also cements the growth of the ecosystem and highlights the speed at which the entire payments industry is changing.
Overall, it is likely that the trend of consolidation in this industry will continue, especially given the rapid pace of new innovative companies that are emerging/growing.
Variable Recurring Payments - a huge milestone for Open Banking
VRP is the key enabler for Open Banking payments as it will unlock numerous subscription and pay-on-demand use cases and change the face of consumer payments as we know it. VRPs introduce the concept of ongoing consent, potentially with big implications for the payments industry.
The introduction of VRP for sweeping is no doubt a huge milestone for Open Banking in the UK, but we’re only at the beginning of the journey. This marks the first piece in the puzzle of better financial wellbeing for everyone, and we`re looking forward to see where the next few years will take us.
…and Open Banking will lead the charge, said Tim Tyler, Senior Industry Principal at Finastra.
Does Open Banking focus enough on corporates? Open Banking is a field of opportunity for corporate banks in its beginning stages. Corporates can use Open Banking for achieving efficiencies in their treasury function and to understand their clients’ financial position better and provide tailored products and services.
Of course, there was much more to cover, but I can only say that Money 20/20 Europe delivered an amazing, well-organised week with great fintech vibes. Hopefully, we can see each other in June 2022 again!
Food for thought: Clearly, the payments space is evolving quickly. Payments pre-pandemic was fractured, but no more – everything needs to be together. What the future is going to hold? All the offerings of financial players through a singular API, predicts Frederick Crosby, Chief Revenue Officer at NIUM.
What`s your prediction for the future of payments?
About Oana Ifrim
Oana Ifrim is Lead Editor at The Paypers. Her research, industry engagement, and content-related activities revolve around Banking & Fintech innovation, Open Banking, Open Finance, B2B fintech. Oana is involved in diverse tasks ranging from content editing, planning & carrying interviews with key experts, representing The Paypers at various banking & fintech events to content research & production and strategic planning and coordination for large-scale, industry-specific research, reports, and projects. She can be reached out at oana@thepaypers.com or on LinkedIn.
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