DANSKE BANK: NORDIC PAYMENTS
Northernlights? Northern lights? A keynote session at FinTECHTalents’ Virtual Nordics conference will ask if the Nordics’ reputation for innovation is media myth or reality. Danske Bank’s Chief Digital Officer, Søren Rode Jain Andreasen, will be among the speakers. Here, he explores the region’s preference for digital payments and harnessing the power of APIs Much of the hype surrounding fintech and disruption in the Nordic region focusses on the tech titans that have their origins there, including Skype and Spotify. The region is also known for fast-paced payments innovation, with Sweden moving especially fast towards a cashless society. It’s also the birthplace of Klarna, the ‘buy now, pay later’ payment service loved by Europeans, which was valued at $10.65billion in its latest investment round. Native payments authentication provider Zwipe, meanwhile, has just raised $10.5million to prepare for the launch of biometric cards. While no Nordic cities made it into the first Global Fintech Hub world rankings, put together by Findexable, Sweden, Finland and Denmark were all in the Top 20 country rankings and Norway has been flagged as a nation that could soon rival some of the old guard because of its track record in innovation, ecosystem building and regulatory effort. If you dig a little deeper into the online world, though – Twitter chats, forums,
blogs – some point to a different reality, one of incumbent bank complacency, a reluctance to forge partnerships and a lack of capital for the majority of startups. So, what’s the truth about the northern fintech lights? One session at the upcoming FinTECHTalents Virtual Nordics conference aims to find out.
INNOVATING THROUGH CHALLENGE It asks boldly Is Nordic Innovation a Myth?’ and one of the panellists will be Søren Rode Jain Andreasen, chief digital officer at Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest bank and a major player in the Nordic region with more than five million retail customers. What’s his view? “On the one hand, Scandinavian countries are very innovative – we have seen some very large companies, global leaders, growing out of the region,” he says. “Within the financial services industry, we have iZettle and Klarna, which are now global leaders within their field. “At the same time, there are also challenges for startups,” he admits. “Access to capital, for example – it’s harder to get funded in Scandinavia
than it is in the US, the UK, or even Asia.” Despite this, the fintech landscape in the Nordics continues to be one of the most successful at producing unicorns. The increased investments and new initiatives made by local governments are primed to facilitate the continued success of fintech in the coming years. And when it comes to scale-up businesses, the Nordic region certainly punches above its weight. According to Findexable research, 16 per cent of European fintech scale-ups are located in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland. While not as many as in an established financial hub such as the UK (38 per cent), that’s more than Germany, at 13 per cent. There is also a confidence and a determination to get things done. The European Commission has now finally approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the proposed acquisition of Nets A/S’ account-to-account payment business, headquartered in Denmark, by Mastercard. The decision is conditional on the transfer of a licence for Nets’ Realtime 24/7 technology for account-to-account core infrastructure services as well as the relevant personnel and other assets. In terms of payments, what sets the Nordics apart, and is driving much of the innovation there,
All points North: The Nordics have spawned some of the most successful payments companies of recent years
10 FintechFinancePresents
2020 Special
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