Our monthly meetup event was held at SugarCity last Friday with approximately 140 attendees at the event. Don Ginsel, CEO of Holland FinTech, kicked off the event with an overview of Holland FinTech’s company mission and our ambitions for 2018. Micha Rentier of ABN Amro officiated the event as the first speaker, with an inspiring speech on the imminence of ‘beyond banking’ and that banks should experiment technologically to remain relevant to consumers. Henriette de Bordes from The Dutch Banking Association followed right after with a presentation on the Dutch banking landscape and the imperative for banks to embrace digitsation. An expert panel comprising of Sibrand Tieleman of Peaks, Lior Bornshtain of Otly, Frank Jan Risseeuw of Yolt and Maartje Visser of MoneYou came together onstage to discuss strategies on how to grow one’s consumer base. Lendahand, Westgate Cyber, Bittiq, and Schluss pitched their respective beyond banking solutions.
Opening the meetup with a bang, Don gave the audience a run down of Holland FinTech, its higher purpose and the assortment of meetups, events and impactful summits awaiting them in 2018. Micha Rentier of ABN AMRO started off with the first speech of the day, offering insights on the inevitable disruptiveness of technology as well as tidbits of ABN Amro’s digital transformation. Henriette de Bordes from The Dutch Banking Association gave the audience an overview about the DBA’s core functions, tasks and expertise, as well as its key role in creating an ecosystem that is conducive to digital innovation.
Next up was the much anticipated beyond banking expert panel, where fintech leaders Sibrand Tieleman of Peaks, Lior Bornshtain of Otly, Frank Jan Risseeuw of Yolt and Maartje Visser of MoneYou banded together to spar on ways that budding fintechs can utilise to acquire and retain customers — a persistent obstacle for challengers in the banking sector.
Representatives from Lendahand, Westfate Cyber, Bittiq and Schluss were then invited to pitch and assess their startups against four fintech challenges; namely social impact, safe exchange of sensitive data, carefree personal finance, and management of personal data.
The pitches:
Lendahand
Dinand Mentink from Lendahand shared the startup’s win-win proposition on generating social impact, which is allowing users to easily invest in entrepreneurs in developing countries. Users receive interest in return, while entrepreneurs will be able to support their families and collectively raise their standard of living.
Westgate Cyber
Marc Barry of Westgate Cyber introduced Enclave; a programme which builds private, secure, peer-to-peer connected overlay networks with automatic end-to-end encryption which can be setup and thrown away in seconds. He also touches on the opportunities that PSD2 provides, as well as existing competitors in the market.
Bittiq
Frederico Spieza and Hidde Koning presented Bittiq as the answer to smart, hassle-free financial administration– being the only financial management app in the Netherlands so far that is connected to all major Dutch banks. With the user’s bank data, Bittiq categorizes expenses and manages subscriptions; allowing users to get a better overview of their finances along with actionable insights on how to save money.
Schluss
Marie-Jose Hoefmans introduced the audience to Schluss, a state-of-the-art multiple encrypted and distributed safe. Only the user has the key, which allows them to decide who will get access to their personal data. The company intends to make each and every user a ‘co-owner’ of the company on the virtue of the distributed network, effectively rendering Schluss an open source solution.
Don wrapped up the event with a few closing comments on the importance of connecting with other stakeholders in the fintech sector, before summarising the meetup within the larger context of the Amsterdam Fintech Week and the Hackathon.
