Innovate Finance CEO and Chair, Janine Hirt and Lou Smith, visited Davos, Switzerland, as part of this year’s World Economic Forum on 16th and 17th January.

It was fascinating to attend such a widely known and prestigious event, one that is of course also attended by world leaders in the spheres of business and politics. One observation however that came through this year is that whilst tech and digital solutions are much discussed, representation by innovators in tech - and particularly FinTech - were under-represented at this year’s event.  Whilst this might sound like a challenging environment for our sector, we came away with the strong impression that this presents FinTech, and especially UK FinTech, with a huge opportunity to shape this presence at future such events.  As such, we hope that Innovate Finance and the UK FinTech sector can have a more impactful presence next year, and with the support of our members and key international stakeholders, we will be working towards this aim over the months to come.

However, it was of course great to connect with those members and institutions that were there during this particular visit - both Janine and Lou had so many valuable and insightful discussions in such a short space of time!  Their eagerness to support a greater presence from the innovators is particularly encouraging, and will benefit the wider UK FinTech ecosystem in the future. Particularly thanks to EY, Primary Bid, Ripple, Accenture, KPMG, Deloitte, Google, and AWS for your time - we really appreciate your continued support for our work.

If you are interested in supporting any future international visits - either to the next World Economic Forum in Davos in 2024, or other key global events, please let us know by emailing international@innovatefinance.com.