In our 4th annual Banking & IT event ‘The Future of Banking’ we talked about blockchain and cryptocurrency trends that are impacting the financial sector and that are laying the foundation for the future of banking. In this blog you'll learn about the origins, build up and and success factors of this event.
The origins of ‘The Future of Banking’
In 2017 Yacht started hosting ‘The Future of Banking’ event where we tackle relevant banking developments and future proof technologies that could be paving their way towards innovating the banking sector. Unlike the past years, the last event was taking place digitally with the collaboration of ‘Randstad Groep Nederland’.
To do that, we interacted with that banking sector via our clients, professionals and consultants to help determine the theme and topics of this event. Our research showed that the interest in the past year lied in digitalization with strong emphasis on the future outlook of cryptocurrencies within the banking industry.
Due to that rise in interest in Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) there is a higher demand for regulatory clarity. Considering the fraudulent and suspicious activity taking place, we believe that better countermeasures could be taken if properly addressed. We therefore want to bring to your attention and the attention of our professionals the topic and its developments in that specific sector.
Collaborating with Randstad Banking we set up a group of people within the network who share passion for the emerging technology and innovation as a whole to act as the event committee. Having such a wide reach we also onboarded experts in the field of banking compliance, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) policy advisors to make sure that the right information is addressed by the right people like Pierre Simon and Eric Faber.
The build-up
To make it easier for the audience to absorb the information which there is a lot of - with emphasis on the crash history course of the technology - we set up the session with a change in scenery. Doing that from a boring old office is not the way to present innovation so we got in touch with a newly built Leonardo Royal hotel in Amsterdam to help us with those demands while having enough room to respect the distancing measures. Along with Heuvelman, the event management partner of Leonardo Royal, we worked together to achieve the same goal of delivering the most amount of relevant content in the least amount of time while making it as simple as possible to bear.
Once the hotel staff started working on the room setup and safety measures, the moderator and the speakers were putting their thoughts in a presentation form and stacking the topics together in a way that could fit the tight agenda while making it a clear narrative for all levels - a challenge we believe we overcame.
Having a well-executed plan, something didn’t go according to plan - new lockdown measures striked the night before filming and all parties involved spent a part of their evening calling each other and coordinating on actions, adapting to make the event even safer than before. Once the dust settled everyone took a sigh of relief and to the readiness of everyone involved in the operation, it ran smoothly - preparation is key.
We believe that we must follow the growth of the industry - a lot is happening and it's happening fast
In hindsight of the successful session, we learned that demand for information about the topic of Blockchain and DLT exists isn’t going away. In fact, it’s trying to grow its roots in our current financial system. The banks are intrigued by the future outlook and are heavily investing in internal research and development departments to explore possibilities.
We believe that we must follow the growth of the industry - a lot is happening and it's happening fast. After all, a 500-year-old monetary system has been impacted by a 12-year-old asset which made us think about the dot com bubble, when a new technology showed its true potential and that changed the way we do business forever.
Conclusion
An hour is a very short amount of time to talk about those topics and its potential impact on the financial sector. Pierre Simon pointed out the current global and European regulatory state which requires more developments and Eric Faber layed out the stage we currently find ourselves in when it comes to a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) progress. Keypoint to remember is that we are still early but regulations are already diving into the matter - they have some catch up to do and it will take time, but we will get there soon enough and, in the meantime, do your own research (DYOR).
There is a big mental barrier we have to surpass just as all new things and for that, we hope to organize more sessions to really bring all the possible points to the table for you the audience, to take in and make your own educated conclusion.
