Fintech Innovators Panel – moderated by Susanne Hannestad, CEO, Fintech Mundi

 

 

The Panel included: Magnus Nilsson, Founder and Executive Chairman, iZettle, Sweden; Selma Kveim, Chief Executive Officer, Bright Products, Norway; Sebastian Olivera, Board Member, Cámara Uruguaya de Fintech, Uruguay and CMO, askRobin, Estonia; Thea Sommerseth, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Diwala, Norway.

In this session, Susanne Hannestad leads the panel representing the 34 Nordic fintechs taking part in the first edition of the international Financial Inclusion Summit held in Oslo on 28 March 2019. The Nordic fintechs, says Hannestad, “are punching above their weight when it comes to financial inclusion in emerging markets.”

Magnus Nilsson of iZettle focuses on the value of “financial inclusion when it comes to reaching out to the underserved, rather than the unbanked.” Selma Kveim of Bright points out the “need for ‘patient money’ in investment” and the need to “measure success by the impact technology bears on people’s lives”.

Sebastian Olivera of askRobn and Cámara Uruguaya de Fintech identifies the main challenge for financial inclusion “in the psychological barriers, trust and cost for those who are excluded.” For Olivera, financial inclusion, education and trust go hand in hand: “lack of education,” he adds ” is the consequence of financial exclusion, not the cause.”

Building on this statement, Thea Sommerseth of Diwala suggests that “we cannot look at a product and adapt it to the market. We need to build that product, and trust, into the market from scratch, through patience and collaboration.”

 

To find out more, view the summit report by Mastercard here.