Digital Trust Finland aims to strengthen Finland’s fintech ecosystem by boosting and enabling Finnish companies with the most lucrative opportunities in fintech.
In the first part of the event, we are looking into European growth opportunities on the Fintech market with an insight study we have commissioned from Frost & Sullivan. The insight study looks into European Fintech hotspots and focuses especially in the payments, financial software, and financing sectors, key trends and market impact of regulation, and how these together translate to concrete growth opportunities.
The second part focuses on Norway and acts as a kickoff for our upcoming fintech delegation to Norway in March 2022. Cicero will give insight into the Norwegian fintech market, and two of the biggest banks of Norway, DNB and SR-Bank, tell about their needs and challenges for which they are looking fintech solutions.
Presentation materials can be found here.
Agenda
Session 1: Future Watch Insight Study - European Fintech Growth Opportunities
11:00 Welcoming words & introductions
Kirsi Kokko, Business Finland
Iain Jawad, Frost & Sullivan
11:10 Presenting the Future Watch insight study
John Davies and Kara Ruan, Frost & Sullivan
11:40 Q&A
12:00 Break begins (opportunity to continue Q&A with Frost and Sullivan)
Session 2: Fintech Opportunities in Norway
12:30 Welcoming words & introductions
Kirsi Kokko and Jouni Carlsson, Business Finland
12:35 Norwegian Fintech Market
Stefan Astroza, Cicero
12:50 DNB and SR-Bank: Needs and challenges
Petter Lee-Johannessen, DNB
Ramtin Matin, SR-Bank
13:10 Fintech delegation to Norway in March 2022
Jouni Carlsson, Business Finland
Hans Christian Bjørne, TheFactory Innovation
13:30 Event ends
Speakers
Session 1
John Davies is a Principle Consultant at Frost & Sullivan, with over 15 years of consulting and advisory work supporting investment, advisory and corporate clients across the transaction cycle and with strategy development. Identifying and evaluating opportunities; looking at commercial due diligence, market positioning and strategy reviews; vendor due diligence and independent Initial Public Offering support. He has experience of a wide range of industries and sectors. Recent projects include looking at Fintech, Financial and non-financial reporting SaaS, Insurtech, and other related areas. John has expertise in external (market) and internal (business plan) reviews with a track record of providing actionable analysis and recommendations to clients.
Kara Ruan is a Consultant, focused on Growth Strategy & Implementation at Frost & Sullivan. She has a good mastery of market strategy related questions, with a particular focus on: market research, econometric modelling, competitive analysis and benchmarking, business plan development, financial analysis and modelling, and a particular interest in Financial Services and Fintech markets. She has strong research and analytical skills combined with substantial knowledge in finance, accounting, and marketing, with extensive international experiences in Asia, North America and Europe.
Session 2
Stefan Astroza heads Financial Services at Itera, a Nordic IT consultancy. He also leads a team of analysts in Iteras subsidiary, Cicero Consulting, covering key trends within banking, insurance and fintech in Norway and the Nordics. Stefan is an experienced business consultant and will provide an overview on the Norwegian fintech landscape and share his perspectives on the future of financial services.
Petter Lee-Johannessen, SVP & Head of Strategic Partnerships at DNB. DNB is the largest financial services group in Norway. Petter’s team have screened more than 400 companies for DNB in 2021 and entered several fintech partnerships. His team is also running the DNB NXT Accelerator and looking for investment opportunities together with DNB Ventures.
Ramtin Matin is currently in the role as Head of Innovation for Sparebank 1 SR-Bank. His expertise lies within the crossfield between Strategy, Technology and Innovation. SR-Bank has the recent years had a focus on innovation as a clear medium for creating competitive advantage in a homogenous market. He holds an Executive MSc in Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School and has previously worked for PwC as management consultant leading initiatives in western Norway within digitization of businessmodels.
Hans Christian Bjørne is the CEO of TheFactory Innovation & Partner at TheFactory Accelerator & VC Oslo, Norway. Hans Christian is a true connector and catalyst for collaboration in the Nordic startup ecosystem, where he is accelerating Nordic startups mainly within fintech, proptech and retail. Hans Christian is a Nordic entrepreneur and investor with a passion for helping startups, and facilitate corporate-startup collaborations. TheFactory Innovation is a business unit in TheFactory Group. We are here to facilitate matchmaking, pilots and powerful partnerships between established industry companies and new technology startups and scale-ups of the Nordic region. TheFactory is a leading accelerator and VC in the Nordics.
About Future Watch
At Business Finland, we create new growth by supporting companies to go global, as well as funding innovations and building business ecosystems. Our top experts speed up the identification of business opportunities around the world and help transform them into global success stories.
Future Watch supports in formulating emerging disruptions to concrete opportunities. With the help of global expertise Future Watch provides actionable insights for Finnish businesses and stakeholders.
Insights for Finnish companies at www.marketopportunities.fi -> Future Watch
Jouni Carlsson, Business Finland
Hans Christian Bjørne, TheFactory Innovation
