Fintech-Aviv is the true place of tech and banking collision

The pandemic has brought us a few posts and news stories about the rapid developments of the Israel Tech scene, and some fascinating insights on what the Fintech-Avic teams are currently working on.

They have been organizers of the Annual Summit for quite a long time now. The event brings Startups together with Investors and Corporations, and is a part of the annual Fin-Tech Week that takes place in Tel-Aviv. The events are free for everyone who wants to broaden their knowledge of the topic.

And while the whole world is slowly, but steadily emerging form lockdowns and the pandemic, Israel has progressed with it at an impressive pace. Their vaccine rollout could be treated as the most effective one in the world, and their introduction of the new ‘normal’ seems to be finished.

Thanks to that, the FinTech community was able to experience not only the new post-pandemic world, but also the latest stories from FinTech market on yet another annual summit.

What is this event like?

Equitech’s Tal Sharon gave Disruption Banking an interview, where he revealed some interesting stories from the Summit’s background. FinTech-Aviv is not any made-up word, but a real name of an Israeli FinTech Association that was introduced by Equitech in 2014. Today, it has over 30,000 members globally, and their mission is quite simple. They want to provide their members with a high-quality content during professional curated themed events.

The 2020 Annual Summit managed to be organized before lockdown and the prohibition of face to face meetings. It hosted 1,000 participants and 40 speakers from all around the globe. As we can imagine, a lot of FinTech companies also showed up.

Events like this, are the perfect place for dialogue about FinTech’s future, and what is more, the future of finance and technology separately. The high-profile guests are only an asset and an important voice in the discussion, and the event could be really fruitful for future cooperations.

This year, they tried everything possible to ensure the most real-life-like experience. They employed a digital platform that allows high engagement between the speakers and attendees. It’s just a substitute of the physical feeling, but it’s the best option possible. Of course the face to face events will come back in the future – there is no doubt in that.

If you want to read Tal Sharon’s words about organizing the 2021 Annual Summit, we advise you to access the comprehensive Disruption Banking piece written by Andy Samu. The author presents there an interesting backstory, he describes the FinTech-Aviv Annual Summit’s mission and plans, as well as presents the 2021 Summit Agenda. To find his comprehensive and original piece, simply enter the following link: https://disruptionbanking.com/2021/04/15/fintech-aviv-does-it-again-the-annual-summit-where-tech-and-banking-collide/.

The Agenda of the Summit

The event started at 10:00 local time, with the opening by Nir Netzer (Equitech’s Founding Partner), alongside Tal Sharon (Equitech’s Managing Partner).

Then, a series of interesting meetings, panels, and discussions with fascinating speakers and guests occurred. Let’s mention some of the figures that were present: Ilan Leiferman (AWS Venture Capital and Featuring Startups Business Development), Toby Smith-Cullen (ING FinTech Lead), Shahar Friedman (Visa’s Head of Innovation), Ornit Shinar (Citi’s Head of Innovation and Venture Investing), Yael Waisbourd-Sucary (Discount Bank’s Head of Innovation), Shai Datika (INX President and Founder), Gil Shapira (Telemessage’s Vice President of Business Development), Shlomi Orgad (Facebook’s Head of FinTech), Harel Falk (Solitics’ Vice President of Sales and Business Development), Joel Petino (BD Strategy Partner’s CEO), and many more.

The guests of the event were able to give really fascinating insights on the FinTech topics, as they all play important roles in world’s leading FinTech companies. This people simply have the expertise to consider different scenarios for the future of the market, as well as are the proper people to speak to about different threats for their businesses.