For its first edition, the Paris Fintech Forum gathered over 100 speakers and attracted 850 participants. This year, the event promises to be even more successful as it is stepping up with more than 200 speakers from over 30 countries. Organizers are estimating over 1500 participants making it one of the largest Fintech events to take place in Europe. The key appears to be the combination of classic bankers, insurers and financiers who are expected to represent one-third of the attendees. Old school financiers may be searching for inspiration from the more than 150 Fintech startups present (or perhaps potential acquisitions?).
Participants will debate the full spectrum of Fintech topics: neo-banks, digital payments, remittance, Insuretech, robo-advisors, personal finance management, Regtech, blockchain… and of course, alternative finance with crowdfunding, crowdinvesting, marketplace lending, and factoring.
Laurent Nizri, the founder and CEO of Altéir Consulting as well as the creator of the Paris Fintech Forum, told Crowdfund Insider;
“My ambition is to bring together on the same stage the CEOs of the largest finance corporations with the CEOs of Fintech startups from all over the world. To give you one example: Thomas Buberl, the CEO of Axa Group, the worldwide insurance leader will converse in a panel with Jean-Charles Samuelian, the CEO of Alan, the 1st fully licensed digital health insurer in France, Tang Loaec, the CEO, of P2P Protect, a Chinese social insurer and Julian Teicke, the CEO of FinanceFox, a swiss online insurance management platform.”
The event is garnering government interest as well. The Forum will be opened by the French Minister of Finance, Michel Sapin. The Governor of the Banque de France, François Villeroy de Galhau, will also participate as will the CEOs of Société Générale, Orange, Bpifrance, Yes Bank, Euronext NV and BPCE.
A track will be dedicated to Alternative Finance, during which several panels will bring together CEOs of lending platforms such as Biz2Credit, CrossRiverbank, WiSeed, Lendix, Swapper, OneFi and Creditshelf to address issues of crowdinvesting, banks and SME crowdlending, consumer lending, “big ticket” crowdlending, crowdfunding technologies and more.
Crowdfund Insider, a media partner, will also be present as Senior Contributor Therese Torris will be moderating a session on alternative finance. If you are interested, the Paris Fintech Forum takes place in Paris on January 25 & 26th.
