Colombo Innovation Tower launches pioneering broadcast with inaugural Fintech Futures

With the fintech market predicted to expand at 74% CAGR globally, the banking and financial sector is long overdue a complete overhaul, to rethink and refocus its product and service offering. 

Sri Lanka’s innovation epicentre, the Colombo Innovation Tower (CIT), will respond to this through the Fintech Futures session, which is endorsed by the Fintech Association of Sri Lanka. It provides an opportunity for the Sri Lankan banking and financial sector to delve into the future of banking, payment management and investment to equip their teams for the future with real intelligence. Top banks as well as Fintech and TechFin companies are set to attend the inaugural session of the limited-ticket event on 1 November.

The session 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, underlining new opportunities and challenges set by the digital economy. It will also highlight the need to learn from the ways in which global financial disruptors are connecting with a new breed of consumers who prioritise convenience, security, digital personalisation and true human interactions. 

CIT stated that the Fintech Futures broadcast intended 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 which connects 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 card companies, accountancy firms, consumer finance organisations and even individual financial managers. 

‘We want Sri Lanka to lead’

The Fintech Futures session is presented with the idea of propelling the Sri Lankan financial sector into the lead in South Asia for combining tech, design thinking and innovation. The session is therefore structured to include fintech market trends and outlook, predominantly for banking, investment and payment-related products and services. Therefore, it will include insights linked to the future of banking techniques and services, products and strategies that lead the 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 in consumer psyche and early disruptors who will capitalise on the opportunities will also be highlighted in the session. Fintech Futures will also underline how the ecosystem 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 inclusivity in financial services, with insights on new opportunities that meet a real need, like digital innovations empowering unbanked, underserved and vulnerable consumers in the markets of developing nations. With readily-reliable cryptocurrencies that will enter the Asian markets through companies like Facebook, markets like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India - where the penetration of the Internet and mobile phones have preceded the availability of open finance - just might adopt cryptocurrencies as a stable means of exchange and an even better proposition compared to 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 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,” says Design Corp’s 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 was changing, with a new focus balanced 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 service institutions like banks or investment management companies,” she said.

In addition to Lin, Fintech Futures will also include discussions and viewpoints from Dialog Axiata Group COO Dr. Rainer Deutschmann and University of Hong Kong Faculty of the Business and 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. CIT is hosting this session to drive human-centred innovation and design thinking within industries such as financial services and products that have a significant impact on the Sri Lankan economy.

To grab the last few tickets on offer and prepare your teams for the future, e-mail [email protected] or call 0769827775.