Following a successful opening day at the Messe München exhibition centre in Eastern Munich, Seamless Europe 2024 opened its doors for day two promising equally engaging conversations and insights into the world of e-commerce.
Kicking off proceedings in the morning on the main stage, Thomas Courtois, CEO of Nickel, the France-based neobank, highlighted the importance of financial inclusion in a modern economy.
Courtois first explained that recent trends were positive: “Generally, we can say that financial inclusion has risen during the last year. If we take into account those who have a bank account, we are at a rate of around 95 per cent across Europe. It’s even more so in Germany or France, where close to 99 per cent of people have a bank account. But I think that the issue is not unbanked people, but the underbanked.”
He also broke down some of the initiatives and investments Nickel had made to improve the accessibility of its accounts for customers: “We are not only digital, but we have a network of point of sale. We have more than 11,000 point-of-sale partners of nickel all across Europe, and they can help our customers to open an account or to manage their accounts every day.
“You can also manage your money by SMS banking. So by sending us a message, Nickel can send you information on your outgoings, balance and last payments.
“We also have a special notch on our card, so blind or visually impaired people know which way to insert their card, while we also offer customer service to deaf people in sign language. We invested a lot to give access to Nickel to everybody, so everybody can feel welcome.”
Considering blockchain and tokenisation
Attention turned to tokenisation for the next panel session, as George Gvazava, chief crypto officer at the Bank of Georgia, revealed his thoughts on the benefits of blockchain:
“If the regulation permits fully what blockchain technology delivers, we could actually see our world become a better place. When you think about traditional settlement systems like investment brokers, custodians, clearing houses, each step in a transaction creates some kind of friction.
“Be it public or private, with blockchain technology you have something that is traditionally done by several layers of companies, done by computer code.”
Benjamin Duve, lead market infrastructure expert at the European Central Bank, discussed the important role central banks play in a tokenised future: “You have a tokenised cash world, where there’s no central bank money, and then there is a central bank money-enabled wholesale world. There are reasons why both exist in parallel.
“During the financial crisis, we saw why we want central bank involvement – because if we only have a private version of money, the music might stop if everybody stops trusting each other. That’s one of the reasons as a central bank, we always look at how can we help facilitate and enable central bank money in that setup.”
Max Heinzle, founder and CEO of 21X, also advocated for blockchain technology: “We’ve seen already that tokenisation is a perfect use case for blockchain. We now have very clear regulations, both in Europe in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, EEA, member states, but also globally, with Asia and the UAE sitting rather at the forefront.”
Heinzle also explained the benefits of interoperability: “Interoperability is going to make our world a better place. It’s going to open accessibility, it’s going to increase speed, it’s going to drive liquidity, and it’s going to allow for self-custody on behalf of investors.”
Building successful partnerships and relationships
Partnerships also represented an important part of the agenda, as Thorbjørn Fink, chief operating officer at Pleo, joined Monika Liikamaa, co-CEO and co-founder of Enfuce.
Fink offered advice to firms: “If you have a potential supplier, look at them as though they are a partner. Really try to spend time with the people behind the website. Try to really see how engaged they are and get the technical people on board. We had a few days where we had our technical team on one side, and their technical team on the other before we signed or agreed anything. This creates a lot of trust between the teams doing the integration.”
Liikamaa echoed this sentiment: “I think that’s also not size specific. Regardless of how big or small you are, taking that time to understand who the people are on the other side is important. Because in the end, when the tech has challenges, no AI can resolve those. It needs to be people that can initiate the solution.”
Seen at Seamless Europe 2024
As we’ve come to expect, Seamless also showcased a range of exciting booths and attractions; including a ‘start-up village’, showcasing a number of exciting new European companies; an area bringing together Turkish fintechs and e-commerce companies; as well as a number of interesting and interactive booth designs.
Don’t forget to check out our day one roundup from Seamless Europe 2024 here!
The post Seamless Europe 2024: Day Two in Munich appeared first on The Fintech Times.
