The Fintech for Inclusion Global Summit is a stark contrast to Davos, where men and women in £1,000 jackets dodge questions about tax avoidance and the collapse of free trade, writes Michael Kent, CEO of Azimo

The Fintech for Inclusion Global Summit in The Hague in early February brought together development players like The World Bank, the Gates Foundation and the Omidyar Network.

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These organisations realise that financial technology, powered by the transformative technology of the smartphone, can improve the lives of others – particularly in emerging markets. With the advent of mobile connectivity, we have created a world of global money transfers and mobile wallets – innovations that have become a lifeline to the millions of people who have been shut out of the traditional economy.

But this is not the only fintech development that is shaping a better world for financial services. I walked out of the Fintech for Inclusion Global Summit with a greater knowledge of a much bigger transformation happening across the entire banking sector – and the future looks brighter for many more people.

One of Ernest Hemingway’s characters described going bankrupt “slowly at first, then all at once”. The fintech revolution is happening at the same pace: what was a slow trickle of innovation five years ago is suddenly a raging torrent.

Fintech has become a force to be reckoned with. Every region now has its own challenger banks and complementary insurance, lending and payments platforms.

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Once dismissed as niche products for millennials, these companies are now entering the mainstream and going global, with millions of users and double-digit market shares.

Three things stand out from my conversations with the fintech CEOs I met from all over the world:

  1. There is more to life than Silicon Valley
    Fintech is truly global. The US and Silicon Valley do not have the stranglehold they enjoy elsewhere in the tech industry. In recent weeks:
  • Visa has fended off Mastercard to buy London payments firm Earthport;
  • Ant Financial is finalising its acquisition of China payment specialist World First – another London-based firm, and
  • Go-Jek, the Indonesian ride-hailing and logistics company, has bought Coins.ph, the Filipino digital wallet business.

These deals show that market opportunity and capital can come from anywhere. Now more than ever, entrepreneurs need to think globally.

2. Big institutions are waking up to financial inclusion
As smartphones continue to bring down the cost of serving customers, more people in emerging markets now have access to financial services.

What is more, thanks to the now largely saturated and stagnant markets in the West, the bigger institutions are finally starting to take notice. Rapid population and economic growth make emerging markets much more appealing for financial, telecoms and internet companies than they were a decade ago.

As my company, Azimo, drives down the cost of payments, we are finding that more and more global financial institutions want to work with us.

3. Fintech challenges are universal, but we will overcome them
Finally, the most striking thing was that all over the world – from India to Brazil, China, the US and the UK – the challenges that fintech companies face may vary in flavour, but remain essentially the same.

Time after time I heard the same concerns:

  • Slow or inconsistent regulation and rules;
  • Patchy support from banks and larger financial institutions;
  • The ongoing war for talent against big companies, and
  • Finding patient and trustworthy investors (and dodging the bad actors – lots of discussion on that).

But the story is one of constant progress. My enthusiasm, and that of my fellow fintech entrepreneurs, knows no bounds.