Paul Mandell | On 8 November 2016

On Wednesday, November 2^nd, nestled in a conference room at Dan Tel Aviv Hotel, entrepreneurs, bank representatives, and FinTech ventures gathered to discuss the future prospects of the banking and finance industry as part of the yearly Bank Innovation Summit.

The summit, to which Techfoliance was a media partner, included three days of discussions on the future of the FinTech industry, along with current trends and the progress that has been made in the past year.

Bank Innovation Conference in Israel

DAY 1:

The summit’s first day included more than 140 one-on-one meetings facilitated by the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute. FinTech ventures and representatives from global and local banks such as Citibank, Lloyds Banking Group, Leumi, and The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. came to seek Israeli FinTech solutions for implementation and investment purposes.

DAY 2:

The second day consisted of panels comprised of both investors and entrepreneurs addressing the use of chatbots and artificial intelligence, payments and wearables affecting the way commerce will be conducted, corporate banking, and blockchain. With so many perspectives represented on stage, it was surprising how much everyone seemed to agree on one thing – the industry is changing, and banks need to be able to adapt quickly.

AI Chatbots & the Emergence of Cognitive FinTech

In the session titled AI Chatbots & the Emergence of Cognitive FinTech, panelists Howard Lindzon of Social Leverage, Philippe Mauchard of Eggsplore, Jay Reinemann of Propel Venture Partners, Liron Rose of TechStars Tel Aviv, and Ben Savage of Clocktower Technology Ventures addressed the exciting prospects and challenges of integrating automated systems with banking data in order to improve the customer experience and growth prospects.

While most banks employ an automated system, and some may employ a chatbot, it was pointed out that in order for something to truly be AI, it must be self-learning, and thus far, nothing of the sort has been implemented on a large scale. The panel pointed out that such a system, connected to backend data, could revolutionize how a bank does business. By analyzing a customer’s usage and funds data, an AI could actively bring a beneficial sale to the attention of the customer, be it over voice or through a text interface.

But before the industry gets far, it is important to note that it has yet to be discovered if customers would be willing to allow their personal information to be exposed to such automated systems. While the panelists agreed that it is important to disclose to customers that they are interacting with a bot, there were differing opinions as to what degree the bot should emulate a human, and if the bot should be assigned a gender. Additionally, it was pointed out that as with all new technology, with greater sophistication comes the increased threat of security breaches.

It seems that interest in FinTech continues to soar, with FinTech events needing larger venues, covering more in-depth topics, and showcasing even more groundbreaking technologies and disruptive Ideas.

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About Fintech-Aviv:

FinTech-Aviv community is one of the world’s largest FinTech communities, operating from Israel and serving as the voice of Israeli FinTech. Next FinTech-Aviv event is going to take place on November 22^nd and will tackle the topic of: ‘FinTech Growth Strategies for Global Markets’. For more details regarding the event, please visit FinTech-Aviv meetup group.