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CFTE Launches Collaboration With Budapest Institute of Banking

cfteadmin — Mon, 17 Jun 2019 11:12:13 +0000

A packed house at Level39 in London joined us earlier this week, with our event marking a milestone agreement between CFTE and the Budapest Institute of Banking (BIB). The agreement between the two parties is in response to the keen Hungarian market that is eager for Fintech solutions.

At the top of the programme was the all-important signing of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with BIB. CFTE’s co-founders Huy Nguyen Trieu and Tram Anh Nguyen, along with CFTE senior advisor, Tamas Haiman, were on stage to sign the agreement, alongside Gergely Fabian, the executive director of MNB (Central Bank of Hungary).

We are tremendously excited for this collaboration as it gives us a foothold in Hungary and Eastern Europe, while also achieving our aim of democratising Fintech education to all. BIB are fantastic partners for this as they are passionate about improving the quality of adult education and efficient knowledge transfer in the sector of finance. Furthermore, this partnership is in line with BIB’s goal of meeting market needs while also fulfilling the social responsibility objectives of the Central Bank of Hungary.

We also had the pleasure of hosting Eva Hegedus (CEO – Granit Bank), Aniko Szombati (Executive Director for Digitalisation and Fintech – Central Bank of Hungary), Janos Pereczes (MKB fintechlab), Stevan Bajic (Founder & CEO – Manigo), Péter Jendrolovics (Head of Retail Banking – Granit Bank), as well as Fabian at the CFTE Campus.

Szombati opened with a keynote speech highlighting the Hungarian appetite for Fintech, and how the country offers many advantages to companies in the industry, such as a favourable tax system, lower costs and easy cooperation with various institutions.

Following this was the first panel session moderated by our Head of Entrepreneurship, Janos Barberis, with Bajic and Pereczes joining Szombati onstage to discuss the Fintech opportunities in Eastern Europe, and the differences of such opportunities in Western Europe.

Hegedus then took to the stage to present her experience of running a digital bank in Hungary. A key point for their success is the increased internet penetration, leading to new initiatives such as video banking, mobile payments and more, which ultimately led to them winning more than 30 awards in the past year!

The next panel session involved Jendrolovics and Fabian, who were joined by Rupert Barksfield (Founder and COO – Pynk), to talk about the differing landscape of digital banks in Eastern Europe, moderated by CFTE co-founder Huy Nguyen Trieu.

We would also like to extend a special thank you to our speakers and visiting panellists for their engaging views and sharing throughout the event. No doubt this helped to make this special occasion a very successful one indeed.

It was a tremendous pleasure to host our wonderful guests at this event, and hope that the partnership between CFTE and BIB will bear much fruit in the coming months and years, not just in Hungary but in more parts of Eastern Europe!

Click here to read the full press release.

CFTE is the learning and innovation platform for individuals and organisations to act on the transformation of Finance. Learn how to get into Fintech, explore the exciting opportunities at Fintech startups, lead AI projects and develop your career.

CFTE develops leading online courses (Comparable to Harvard Fintech Course, Oxford Fintech programme and MIT Fintech certificate course), Experiential Learning Programmes such as Entrepreneur workshops and also animate a community of 1000 of alumni and experts.

Start with the foundations with our Fintech Foundations Programme and AI in Finance course.

Think and act like an Entrepreneur with our Extrapreneurship Programme.

Meet and get inspired at our Fintech ecosystem

Browse our Fintech Events Agenda.

About CFTE

We are a platform supported by senior leaders from the largest institutions, startups, and universities. We address the needs of professionals in finance to upskill in a rapidly changing industry being transformed by emerging technologies. More than 50,000 participants learn from our online courses, such as AI in Finance, Fintech Foundation or Extrapreneurship, a mini-MBA with fast-growing startups such as Revolut or Shift Technology.

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CFTE at Money20/20 Europe

cfteadmin — Fri, 14 Jun 2019 07:21:29 +0000

Another conference is done and dusted, with the CFTE team spending a few very productive days at the Money20/20 Europe conference held in Amsterdam. Our co-founders, Huy Nguyen Trieu and Tram Anh Nguyen, and Head of Entrepreneurship, Janos Barberis, were certainly kept busy with plenty of panels, speeches and product announcements throughout the entire three days. Here’s a summary of what we got up to:

Day 1

We hit the ground running on the first day! Tram Anh chaired an entire suite of sessions about AI in Finance under the theme of Transformational Technology, where several business cases for disruptive technologies in financial services were analysed and explored.

She also acted as the moderator for an engaging panel discussion titled “AI: Are We Using It Right?”, with participants including Mark Ma (Machine Learning Engineer – SAP), Dror Oren (Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder – Kasisto), Elena Alfaro (Head of Data & Open Innovation, Client Solutions – BBVA) and Devika Daga (Director of Global Partnerships & Operations – Element, Inc.)

The key takeaway from this panel session can be best summed up in a quote from Tram Anh – “The first ones to be confused – or worried – are certainly those working in financial services.”

It was a busy day for CFTE co-founder Tram Anh Nguyen!

Another important note highlighted by Daga is the fact that AI must be trained and that it will take plenty of time, with Oren also pointing out that executives must think of what’s next tomorrow, in addition to aligning departments and optimising quickly when implementing the technology.

Later in the day, Janos’ session involved a panel discussion about successful and unsuccessful approaches to internal innovation, with Dr. Amy Neale (Vice President, Mastercard Start Path – Mastercard), Nicolas Kozakiewicz (Chief Innovation Officer – Worldline), Grzegorz Pawlicki (Head of Innovation – PKO Bank Polski) and Wincie Wong (Head of Innovation for Supply Chain Services – NatWest).

Thanks to an interesting discussion, panellists highlighted the importance of bringing diversity to thinking, keeping an open mind when exploring change within a Fintech ecosystem, and making sure products have a clear growth path when integrating them into business.

Away from the panels, we were also present for other interesting sessions at the event:

Tram Anh announced this year’s AI in Finance Awards, a once in a lifetime opportunity for finance professionals and entrepreneurs, and potential applicants can apply here!
CFTE contributing expert Anne Boden (Founder and CEO – Starling Bank) launched her new book “The Money Revolution” – we wish her nothing but congratulations and continued success!
Rob Frohwein, the CEO and co-founder of Kabbage, offered advice to all entrepreneurs, urging them to understand “where your business comes from and where it is going”, while also encouraging the audience to embrace digital

Day 2

CFTE contributing experts Claire Calmejane (Chief Innovation Officer – Societe Generale) and Boden were in action at a panel discussion we caught in the morning, talking about the opportunities and challenges of banking in 2019.

It was also a busy day for Huy, first with the announcement of the “Top 50 Fintech (2014) Report: What They Have Become”, which can be downloaded here, as well as moderating a panel discussion between Nordic banks about “Tech Roadmaps in Banking” with Ville Sointu (Head of Emerging Technologies – Nordea), David Grundy (Group Head of Blockchain/DLT – Danske Bank) and Lasse Meholm (Head of Blockchain & DLT Strategy – DNB Bank).

Huy in action as moderator of a discussion panel between Nordic banks

The key takeaway from the panel session was the topic of collaboration, with Grundy emphasising that although “it’s a race to be first”, at the end of the day “technology requires collaboration” as it cannot be done alone.

We also managed to set some time aside to catch up with Clare Joy of Onfido, regarding the upcoming event “AI in FINANCE, REGULATION and SKILLS” organised by French Tech London. Taking place on June 18, 2019 in London, this special event will see our co-founders Tram Anh and Huy take part as speakers and panellists.

All smiles for the camera!

Day 3

Tram Anh’s first panel session of the day was part of the Rise Up program, where she was a speaker on the topic of “Empowering Women in Leadership”. Practical ways to break the glass ceiling were discussed with Kate Adamson (Head of Mortgage – Plaid), Smriti Vicari (Head of Fintech Europe – Visa) and Sophie Jackson (Joint Publisher & Head of Strategic Content – Treasury Today Group).

The key message that Tram Anh shared was for women to seek opportunities through learning about digital finance and essential learning AI as part of enriching their skill sets. She encouraged women to take control of their path, saying that “Being a leader of the future is allowing yourself to be different, you have to adapt faster than anyone else.”

Tram Anh certainly made the most of her time at Money20/20, and it was hard to find her anywhere other than a stage!

She also managed to fit another panel into her busy schedule, this time chairing a discussion by EWPN on the topic of “How AI Can Promote Gender Equality in the Financial Industry”, and was joined by Beatrice Bouju (Executive Board Member – European Women Payments Network (EWPN)) as moderator, and Shafique R Ibrahim (Group IT Head – Payment – AI Fardan Group) and Miriam Ballesteros (Head of Communications – Strands) as panellists.

Topping off her busy day, Tram Anh encouraged everyone to upskill themselves, seeking and gaining knowledge to take advantage of the burgeoning finance industry ripe with opportunity.

“The world is changing. We’re moving into an AI world and the industry that invests most in AI is financial services. It’s not hyped, it’s really happening. And we need to ensure everyone involved understands AI and no one is left behind” – Tram Anh Nguyen

Janos also had a productive day when he announced the relaunch of the successful CFTEx programme. More details will follow in due course, but it was exciting to see the reemergence of a programme which was well-received by the first cohort of participants!

We also managed to catch CFTE Academic Advisory Board Member, Ronit Ghose (Global Head of Banks Research – Citi), in action. He gave a rousing speech about building a strategy from scratch, which was well-received as evidenced by the healthy crowd in attendance!

It proved to be a wonderful three days in the presence of some of the finest and brightest minds in finance today. We intend to take what we’ve learnt and shared with the world and continue to build the Finance 2.0 community, especially with our next Extrapreneurship programme set to launch in August. It promises to be nothing short of exciting!

We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the team at Money20/20 for putting on such an amazing, engaging and memorable event. We certainly enjoyed our time in Amsterdam and hope to be back for the next edition. If what we saw is anything to go by, the future of finance is very, very bright indeed.

Team CFTE signing off from Amsterdam!

Start with the foundations with our Fintech Foundations Programme and AI in Finance course.

Think and act like an Entrepreneur with our Extrapreneurship Programme.

Meet and get inspired at our Fintech ecosystem

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Is Upskilling Vital to Stay Relevant in the Finance Industry?

cfteadmin — Fri, 10 May 2019 03:50:35 +0000

The short answer is yes. FinTech is impacting every single vertical and divisions in the finance industry. Be it investment banking, capital markets, compliance or sales, no one is immune from this pending disruption. Last year, FinTech accounted for 33% of revenue in financial services according to Accenture, and it’s a safe bet to assume that this figure will continue to increase year-on-year.

It’s Important to Know How It Works

The idea of FinTech or AI in finance is to make life easier, both for people within the industry as well as customers. However, there’s currently a big gap in the market for individuals with the right skills needed for FinTech. As the technology automates the tedious jobs, the high-level execution such as strategic planning is left to humans. Without the right qualifications and understanding of FinTech and AI, it will soon become impossible to remain relevant.

For example, AI can be used to report and analyse huge amounts of data collected. However, it will be left to humans to interpret the data or determine what it is used for. Without understanding FinTech, this data cannot be utilised properly. This is just one example of how it is imperative to understand the technology to be able to execute accordingly.

Many Jobs Will Be Created

Global FinTech investment hit a record US$111.8 bil in 2018. It’s no surprise that recruitment is going to use up much of these funds. Jobs in FinTech startups are going to increase exponentially and these roles are likely to be given to those with the best FinTech qualifications. Without a solid FinTech education, you’re likely to be trailing the pack.

Banks and many other financial institutions are already looking to upskill their employees via various online FinTech courses to prepare for the future. If industry stalwarts are already getting ready for the FinTech revolution, why shouldn’t you?

The FinTech Foundation Course by CFTE is designed to help build your Fintech knowledge in just 8 hours with the help of leading academics and industry leaders, and boasts a community of thousands of alumni and experts.

Click the button below to learn more about the course.

Start with the foundations with our Fintech Foundations Programme and AI in Finance course.

Think and act like an Entrepreneur with our Extrapreneurship Programme.

Meet and get inspired at our Fintech ecosystem

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Will Your Job Exist Tomorrow? – CFTE Blog

cfteadmin — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 10:10:19 +0000

With the financial industry on the cusp of a significant shift to digital, ‘Will your job exist tomorrow?’ was the perfect question for CFTE’s Co-founder, Tram Anh, to put to an audience full of finance professionals at this year’s Money 20/20 conference in Copenhagen.
The response was overwhelming.
The rest of this article will explore the backdrop to Tram Anh’s talk at Money 20/20. It will attempt to put into context the changes that are occurring in the financial industry as a result of technological disruption.

Money 20/20 Europe

Money 20/20 Europe is a leading international conference. Thousands of professionals across various industries such as banking, advertising, media, investment, and technology attend the conference annually.
This years conference was held against a backdrop of record levels of investment in FinTech. According to a CBI Insights report, investment in FinTech is set to exceed 2016 levels.
With FinTech gaining momentum people were naturally eager to understand how it would impact their jobs.

Tram Anh delivers her message on jobs in Finance 2.0

Tram Anh was invited to Money 20/20 Europe speak about the impact of technology on jobs on the brand new Arena Stage.
The innovative stage is designed to enable maximum engagement from the audience. The stage utilises multiple screens on all sides, floor projections and circular seating to deliver an immersive experience for the audience.
Thus, it was the perfect stage (no pun intended!) for Tram Anh to deliver her message on the impact of technological disruption on jobs in finance.

Tram Anh speaking on the Arena Stage at Money 20/20 Europe

Tram Anh’s talk was designed to be inquisitive and engaging.
She used polls and activities to get the crowd thinking more about how their roles within finance were beginning to changing with new technological innovations.
Even with a diverse crowd from a wide variety of backgrounds, a general consensus emerged. People agreed that technology was noticeably affecting their industries and consequently was also beginning to affect their jobs.

The audiences and their thoughts

A highlight from the talk was when she asked the audience:
What do you think your job will be in the next 5 years?

My job will disappear
My job will stay the same
My job will be significantly different

For the answer, she pulled the audience onto the stage with her and via projections onto the ground floor, she asked them to choose a segment that corresponded to the three choices she had given.
Most people seemed to think their jobs would definitely change as a direct result of technological advancements. Some were insistent that their job would remain totally unchanged, no matter what happened in tech.
Nobody thought his or her job would totally disappear – not a single person.
Was the audience correct in their assumptions (after all, they are all professionals… many senior managers or CEOs)?
Or were they being too optimistic about the security of their positions?

The audience participate in the interactive vote

Learning lessons from History

As much as we would like to, we cannot look into the future for answers.
However, it is possible to reflect on past data to make accurate predictions. Many parallels can be drawn between the financial and advertising industries.
In the past 2 decades, advertising has gone through a technological revolution, which has reshaped the industry and redefined jobs. Tram Anh drew on this data to illustrate what is happening in Finance now.

The Disruption of Advertising

If one looks at the total advertising industry, it has undoubtedly transformed during the last 10 years.
Upon closer inspection, it is revealed that, while Internet advertising grew to around 5 times its initial size, print advertising collapsed, shrinking by around 60%.
Overall, the advertising industry is bigger today than 10 years ago.

What happened?

As the Internet grew as a network, new digital technologies such as search engines grew with it, changing how readers accessed and consumed information.
People began to spend more time online consuming content, thus the emphasis shifted from print to new business models that leveraged the power of digital technology.
This led to a subsequent decline in the sale of books, newspapers, and magazines and gave birth to an ecosystem of innovative businesses that live online.

Online advertising grows

Businesses like the Huffington Post, WordPress and variety advertising technology platforms were born. Some print newspapers, like The Independent, have even become digital pure plays as they look to move with the times.
With a shift in the way content is consumed came a shift in the way advertisers had to sell products. Nowadays, Google alone makes more advertising revenue than the entire US Print Media, see figure 1.

Figure 1. The rise of Google’s advertising business

This overview shows that even when an industry grows, certain sectors can still shrink. This, of course, has implications for employment.
Overall, the total number of jobs in advertising has decreased slightly but not by much, which could lead one to believe that jobs have remained fairly unchanged. However, as before, this macroscopic approach to analysing the data is very superficial.

New jobs created

What really happened was some jobs disappeared, others were transformed and some entirely new positions have emerged.
Demand for digital skills such as data analytics, SEO, social media has grown as advertisers now compete for the short attention spans of online readers and consumers.

Figure 2. The changing face of jobs within the publishing sector

Figure 2 above, highlights the decline in print jobs was almost entirely offset by an increase in online publishing roles.
It is also worth noting that these figures don’t take into account the number of jobs created in other verticals like AdTech and digital marketing, meaning in actual fact the total number of jobs increased.
In other words,

Hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared in newspapers,
Hundreds of thousands of jobs were transitioned to a digital world

And many totally new jobs were created.

What does FinTech mean for your job?

What Tram Anh concluded was that innovation in financial technologies will likely lead to:

Jobs Totally Changing: In the advertising industry, the technological revolution meant almost everybody had to adapt from print media to online media. In finance, most jobs will experience a similar transformation.

Jobs Disappearing: Technology will, unfortunately, lead to whole sectors of finance becoming obsolete with certain job roles disappearing. Print advertising as a segment saw a massive decline and with it, many jobs disappeared.

New Jobs Being Created: As demonstrated by the advertising industry example, technology creates jobs. Both within existing industries and in new adjacent sectors that are born of a need to service facilitate the growth new technology brings.

Which roles? Some new job roles can be predicted, others less so. For example, the explosion of data is increasing demand for financial companies to better manage their data, thus we can fairly confidently predict that demand for data specific skills will increase. Other roles likely to emerge are harder to predict. But just as blogging and social media have flourished we can expect similar parallels to emerge in Finance 2.0

The inescapable fact is, change is already happening.
Take the number of Cash Equity traders in Goldman Sachs’ New York Office. In 2000, there were 600 but today, following advancements in Automation and AI, there are only 2.
Most of the people in finance are now beginning to become more aware of the technology-driven changes like these.
The next step is for professionals working in finance to take proactive steps to ensure that they are best positioned to benefit from these changes.
It was on this principle, to help finance professionals transition to Finance 2.0, that CFTE was founded.
The FinTech courses CFTE is developing have been designed to educate and empower professionals to seize the opportunity technology creates.
For more information, register with us here.

Follow us on social media for the latest CFTE updates
In order not to miss any details, offers and events related to the launch of our new FinTech course, follow us on: LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

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A few numbers about the changes happening in finance

cfteadmin — Tue, 23 May 2017 10:35:25 +0000

The CFTE website has 3 statements:

Goldman Sachs’ cash equity business employed 600 traders, now it’s 2
Fintech is forcing banks to a tipping point according to Citi
Zhong An, a new insurance company in China, now has 500 million clients – in 5 years

This shows the scale and rapidity of changes happening in finance.
In the case of Goldman Sachs, there is clearly a trend for more automation and fewer traders, it’s undeniable. On the other hand, Goldman Sachs now has more software engineers and developers than Facebook, so the nature of the work in banks has also clearly changed.
Citi’s report is a great report about Fintech, and more generally the trend in finance, and everybody interested in that topic should read it.
Finally, Zhong An is a new digital insurance company, launched in China 5 years ago. Their scale is incredible, and clearly shows that technology and new business models are disrupting traditional finance.
We’ll use this blog to write about these topics, so register on the right if you’re interested to receive the updates.
And of course, go to CFTE and register there if you want to learn the news skills of Finance 2.0 – that’s the best investment you can make today: invest in yourself.

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