We’re gathering the very best voices for FTT Lending 3.0 2023, live in London this March 29th. After last year’s stellar turnout, we’re expanding our vibrant community for the first in-person event of the year at the Convene in London.
The content will run the gamut of key topics across the lending ecosystem with two stages stacked with Rockstar innovators in mortgages, BNPL, SME lending, invoice financing, embedded lending and much, much more. Looking forward, we wanted to loop you in on some of the key themes powering FTT Lending 3.0:
TAKING ON THE COST-OF-LIVING CRISIS
Crises are nothing new to the 2020s. The decade was practically kicked off by one and now we are facing another, arguably one that hits all of us. From the pandemic to last year’s turbulent mini budget, the sector has found fertile ground on which to innovate and economic and behavioral changes to address.
FTT Lending 3.0 will play host to several sessions, led by community leaders including Fair for You, Plend, Barclays and ASDA Money, posing questions that need answering. How are we as a sector doing our part to provide improved access to the financially underserved? Is open banking the way forward? Are the mutuals setting an example with that human touch or do we need data to drive the sector forward?
Fresh thinkers from Salad Money, Metro Bank UK, Abound, Plend and Mitek will take center-stage to address these issues on sessions such as Reaching the underserved through scalable open banking. Mutual trailblazers from Accord, Paradigm, London Mutual Credit Union, Skipton and Coventry Building Societies will gather to position their institutions as Lending’s linchpin example. Microfinance leaders from lendwithcare & Fair for You get stuck into responsible small loans, serving the underfinanced and pushing for partnerships with microlending 101. This is a big and important topic that will certainly be front of mind of participants across all parts of the agenda.
THE DESERVED HYPE OF EMBEDDED LENDING
76% of finance executives agreed that embedded lending products present “massive” growth opportunity, according to a recent survey. We’re inclined to agree too, given the fast-growing adoption of embedded platforms and services across all sorts of sectors and businesses. Through all of this, the Buy Now Pay Later products have remained firmly in the public eye, gaining traction through a growing number of providers and partnerships (e.g. Klarna & Deliveroo), increased scrutiny through proposed FCA regulation and the sometimes controversial role of the products given the cost-of-living crisis.
Alex Marsh, Head of Klarna UK and one of our Rockstar speakers, will be tackling BNPL positioning in the cost-of-living crisis, on the Power of Lending stage, discussing the strategies being put in place to support consumers as well as some of the challenges of the current BNPL model.
Point of sale and short-term financing have often crossed paths, but they’ve been dominating the retail market, making embedders of the biggest names on the high street. These businesses are predicted to increase their profitability fivefold, an estimate Nick Holt, Director of Solutions Engineering at Marqeta, will be discussing on the embedded lending 101 panel at FTT Lending 3.0.
TAKING TANGIBLE STEPS TOWARDS NET ZERO
With concerns about the greenwashing trend rearing its head across the tabloids, financial institutions have a way to travel to prove they can demonstrate their green credentials. In the light of the energy crisis and interest rate rise, mortgage providers have been rethinking their overall strategy when it comes to affordable products that actively encourage customer’s engagement with their home’s EPC rating. Net zero is allegedly miles off into the 2040s, which gives our Rockstar speakers from CHL Mortgages and the Green Finance Institute plenty of time to do their bit for greener finance and ultimately, a greener planet.
THE LATEST TECH TRENDS IN LENDING
Technology underpins so much of the innovation – from business model to product – that we will be exploring at FTT Lending 3.0. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are driving change in everything from credit decisioning to loan servicing. Given the splash with which ChatGPT landed late last year, the technology seems to be advancing rapidly.
Blockchain technology continues to be part of exploring the ‘art of the possible’ and finding its best use cases in the industry. Whilst Lending as a Service platforms are equipping a growing universe of non-financial brands to seamlessly integrate a lending product into their offer to customers/end-uses. The internet of things is also connecting commerce in ways that have not yet been fully utilized or explored.
At the heart of all this sits the customers – consumers and businesses – that use the products technology helps create. Successful innovation will be measured by the degree to which future lending products better enables them to grow their businesses, meet their future goals and manage their way through difficult economic terrain.
POWER-UPS FOR THE SMEs
One of our key themes for FTT Lending 3.0 is the empowerment of small and medium businesses and the ambitious people who run them.
Across both stages we have thought leaders from all corners of the lending sphere taking steps to better improve the financial wellbeing and flexibility of the unfairly underfinanced SME market. Daniel Drummer, CFO at auxmoney will be kicking off the Power of Lending stage in this fashion, pondering with fellow panelists the keys to closing the near-prime gap for the underserved. We’ll be looking behind the curtain at the latest tech innovations in both traditional and alternative lending space. Representatives from Cashplus and Kashkind will lead the conversation on enabling SME growth through holistic data draws and alternative credit criteria.
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For one day London will be the hub for all things lending.
Don’t sleep on FTT Lending 3.0
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