The most important start-up event of the year Slush 2019 took place in Helsinki last week and FinFin was of course present in the middle of the buzz.
On Wednesday 20th, our CEO Kirsi Suopelto took part in a panel discussion on the data economy and the future financial services in a SLUSH side event by FIN-FSA (The Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority). Other panelists were Teija Kaarlela from Finance Finland, Paula Pessi from The Consumers’ Union of Finland and Sanna Atrila from FIN-FSA.
“The future financial services will be seamless and instant, personal and relevant. They will be genuinely useful for us both as consumers and also in business. As financial services have only intrinsic value, the service itself is not going to be as important as the primary, real need it serves, which might create a whole new meaning for financial services”, Suopelto summed up in the discussion about future financial services.
From the FIN-FSA’s event the FinFin delegation headed straight to Kuunari Katrina, an old ship anchored in the Northern harbor in Helsinki, where our members LVS Brokers and Ukko.fi had their pirate style SLUSH side event. Under the deck, rum was served and inspiring entrepreneurship stories heard.
Thursday 21st was dictated by our own SLUSH side event FINTECH CRASH COURSE, organized together with Helsinki Business Hub, which took place in the HBH Secret Garden Lounge in Messukeskus. The event was sold out and the lounge filled up with both international and local fintech entrepreneurs, financial industry players, and investors interested in fintech. The crown of the afternoon was the panel discussion on Where’s the Nordic fintech industry heading to and how to get onboard with Mikko Riikkinen from 52nd Ventures, Hanna Johansson from Revolut, Alexander Yin from ePassi and Heidi Hurskainen from Prasos, moderated by FinFin’s board member Anni Salo.
The discussion went on lively about why should any fintech go to the Nordics, what should this fintech be aware of, how to scale up considering the regulatory burden and how to productively co-operate with bigtechs and incumbent banks.
After our own event and some networking in Messukeskus, we moved to Allas Sea Pool for Helsinki Fintech Farm’s Helsinki Fintech Pool event where we enjoyed interesting presentations from local fintechs, such as our member Enfuce, along with good food, drinks and the company of other fintech heads.
As expected, the SLUSH week with all the fintech side events offered us a bunch of new inspiring ideas and the valuable chance to meet a lot of old and new acquaintances which we hope to be working with in the future!
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