The second annual conference on fintech innovation will take place on 28 June, bringing together representatives of banks, venture funds, telecommunication companies, technological firms and startups.

The event will also be attended by regulators, which will make possible a profound discussion on the most relevant fintech issues of the present day, including open APIs, cyber-security, robo-advising, blockchain and artificial intelligence, reports Bankir.Ru, the Russian financial media hosting the event.

Head of the Bank of Russia’s fintech department Vadim Kalukhov, who is in charge of the regulator’s blockchain-related research, is going to take part in the event. Among the attendees are representatives of Alfa-Bank, Sberbank, B&N Bank, Tinkoff Bank, Otkritie Bank and VTB Bank, QIWI payment provider and other prominent financial institutions, research centres such as the Higher School of Economics and Skolkovo Innovation Center, and startups such as PayMe, 2Can, Tochka, Liberty Grant, Rubbles and Segmento. A representative of IBM is expected to appear as well.

The programme of FinTech Lab 2016 includes roundtables as well as project pitching sessions, for which applications are still admitted. Only solutions created by Russian teams and/or implemented in Russia can apply for the competition.

“Modern times bring new challenges and demand new solutions. Our task is to help those innovators, banks and ventures to find each other, who do not complain about the crisis, but are going to develop their business and using new opportunities,” reads the slogan of the conference.

In 2015, more than 200 representatives of banks, fintech startups, industry associations and regulators took part in the first FinTech Lab conference. At that time, Bank of Russia’s Nadezhda Prasolova spoke about the development of the banking sector digitisation roadmap that would make financial services more available for users in remote regions.

Andrew Levich