Our monthly meetup event was held at ABN Amro’s Circl last Friday with approximately 200 attendees. Don Ginsel, CEO of Holland FinTech, officiated the meetup with an overview of Holland FinTech’s company mission and current span of our fintech network. Michael Little of Accenture kicked off the event with a presentation of the importance of developers within the open banking context. Beryl van Wilgen followed up with an inspirational narrative of Circl’s foundation and aims. ABN AMRO’s Yurry Hendricks, NXchange’s Marleen Evertsz and Buckaroo’s Gijs Vodegel pitched their respective fintech solutions.
Opening the meetup with a bang, Don introduced Holland FinTech to the audience and its role in coordinating not only local, but also international fintech events. He emphasized on the nonlinearity of fintech: many fintech innovations cross multiple functional teams and lines.
Michael Little of Accenture started off with the first presentation of the day by detailing how banks can cope and thrive with the advent of the open banking movement. He stressed on the importance of attracting sufficient developers in order for banks to introduce new products, and talks about their roles in developing efficient platforms for Know-Your-Customer (KYC) procedures.
Next up was Beryl van Wilgen from ABN AMRO, who narrated on the ethos and inspiration behind Circl’s development. Circl was built as a prime meeting space as well as a platform for businesses to develop themselves. The design of the building is testament to its no-wastage philosophy: all of the materials used are second-hand and can also be disassembled and incorporated into other buildings.
The pitches:
ABN AMRO
Yurry Hendricks from ABN AMRO shared the bank’s dabblings in blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) based solutions. He suggested that blockchain can solve data reconciliation issues in contexts where the flow of information is nonlinear or multilinear, and presented the real estate ecosystem as a case example. He drew attention to ABN AMRO’s vision in building a hyperconnected world of ecosystem, and reaffirmed his confidence in ABN AMRO’s approach of offering DLT solutions in multiple industries.
Nxchange
Marleen Evertsz from Nxchange talked about the implications of disintermediation, and how businesses can fund each other using security tokens settled and transacted using a public blockchain. She positions Nxchange as a potential trading platform for this purpose, owing to its use of P2P technology. As the first whitelabelled stock exchange, Nxchange has the benefit of possessing a regulated market permit; which allows it to compere with other established trade exchanges.
Buckaroo
Gijs Vodegel from Buckaroo gave a picture focused presentation on the history of Buckaroo and its API-based payment solutions for B2B and B2C transactions. He walked through a use case of the company’s products, showing examples of customer friendly payment prompts as well as messages for recurring payments.
Don wraps up the event by delivering some closing comments, with reminders of the much anticipated Pensiontech summit this Wednesday and the Amsterdam Fintech Week a month from now.
