2017-11-29
Over 800 financial market policy-makers, academics and business representatives from Lithuania, the USA, Sweden and other countries, as well as guests from all over the world and Lithuania will gather at the international FinTech Conference in Vilnius. The largest ever financial technology event, which is organised by the Ministry of Finance jointly with the Bank of Lithuania and the association Tech City Lithuania, will take place on 30 November.
‘The ambitious aim to become the leader in FinTech among the Nordic-Baltic Eight is already heard in the world. Half a year earlier, when we said at the international Conference in Paris that we would become the FinTech leader in the region, many shook their heads. While now the neighbouring countries are asking us how we managed to emerge on the FinTech map over such a short period in time. In order to attract investors from the FinTech field, we have created a favourable legal environment and attractive incentives for business expansion. The fact that a wealth of guests from all over the world arrived to the Conference is one more proof that we have succeeded in this,’ claimed Vilius Šapoka, Minister of Finance.
Marius Jurgilas, Member of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, emphasised that consistent efforts of the Bank of Lithuania and other institutions to present the opportunities for FinTech development in Lithuania had already been bearing fruit. A few dozen business licences have been issued to FinTech companies since last year alone, while global companies have been choosing Lithuania as their main headquarters in Europe: ‘Having acquainted themselves with the open-to-dialogue regulator and the environment conducive to investment, investors already tell others about their positive experience in Lithuania. We feel a massive interest and this is just the starting point for the benefits of innovations and increasing competition to be felt by residents and businesses.’
According to one of the speakers at the Conference, a Nobel Prize winner, R. J. Shiller, FinTech help boosting the creation of both economic welfare and a fairer sharing of this welfare among society: ‘Not every inequality is bad as it is created in part by fair remuneration for hard and effective work. It is bad when inequality cannot be justified and is accidental. FinTech help reduce such inequality. Fortunately, FinTech are booming now – when the concerns of society over economic inequality have been growing.’
‘Financial technologies and innovations provide us with more opportunities for taking care of personal finance and with financial liberty for more and more people. Technologies invigorate evolution within the banking and finance area, as a result of which products and services provide the users with more benefits and enable businesses to operate more efficiently than ever before. The best thing is that we are at the starting point of this wave of progress. This is a perfect reason for being optimistic,’ claimed Keith Noreika, outgoing Comptroller of the US Office of the Currency (OCC).
Lithuania is attractive for the technology and innovation sector for its flexible regulation system. Companies can make use of assistance offered by the regulator, while the licensing process is one of the quickest among the EU countries. Many businesses are also lured by the offered favourable business environment in Lithuania as well as the infrastructure of world-class information and communication technologies.
A digital FinTech Innovation Office will soon be established, which will take care of the development of the financial technology ecosystem and presentation of Lithuania’s jurisdiction abroad. The Bank of Lithuania is also devising a new testing environment for financial innovations that will enable companies creating innovative financial products and business solutions. It is also planned to devise a testing environment for Blockchain technology.
The speakers at the Conference will include high-level experts in finance – Robert J. Shiller, a Nobel Prize winner, Keith Noreika, Comptroller of the US Office of the Currency, and numerous other world, European and Lithuanian experts in financial markets.
The FinTech conference organised last year was attended by around 200 people; this year, over 800 participants from all over the world are expected to attend it.