How did we arrive at the situation today?
How did we get to this hybrid combination of financial systems we enjoy today, where the customer is at the core of our industry’s priorities? Well, fintechs, banks, insurers and regulators realized at one point that the best way to achieve this new reality was to work together. A reality we now know as embedded finance, where finance was transformed into a commodity, a product big tech and other industries could plug into their core products and services.
All this was done to enable the solutions I mentioned at the beginning of this article. But also, for example, wallets, in which customers store both their centralized and decentralized financial products. And the offering in the Metaverse helped banks and insurance companies rehumanize their services. For example, by letting customers advise each other in virtual bank branches, with the best advising customer being rewarded with NFTs (non-fungible tokens).
The past decade also saw the creation of many new financial jobs. Not only data scientists, but also, for example, specialists in the ethics of data and AI. There are new experts, who finance their activity with the micro-credits I mentioned earlier and work safely together worldwide within Decentralized Autonomous Organizations.
What about the problem of consumers who no longer dared to share their data? Well, they were convinced by the fintechs. Their solutions, which for instance offered so many advantages and opportunities, like decreasing costs, saving time, making better-informed decisions, getting rewarded with NFTs, that they persuade consumers to share their data anyway. This was a great common effort between fintechs and banks, both gaining from it.
Made in Belgium
The reality that fintechs have always pursued is today, in fact, very close to reality. Partly because we have been working on just that in recent years through FIRe, our innovation hub dedicated to digital finance. Under the motto: „Connect, collaborate and innovate.” We brought all financial institutions, fintechs, big tech and sectors that want to offer financial services together to the table.
This collaboration has an international scope because our market has some strong assets. Belgium is small, but at the same time very diverse, a great crossroad of cultures, languages and trade. That makes it ideal for testing innovations and immediately expanding into different countries. Moreover, Brussels is the Capital of Europe, which means you are close to the European policy makers with whom we work very closely through the European Digital Finance Association we founded back in 2019.
With these arguments we were able to attract investors. But at the same time, we had to convince our fintechs that Belgium was only the first step. They needed to think bigger, beyond our borders.
