Trust between consumers and financial service providers will be crucial as society continues to shift towards digital platforms, the founder of Fintech Ireland has warned.
Peter Oakes, who is a business, regulatory and legal adviser, trained as a lawyer in Australia and then qualified in Britain and Ireland.
He spent a large part of his career with regulators, most notably director at the Central Bank of Ireland responsible for enforcement and financial crime.
Oakes will be speaking at the Future Banking and Financial Services Summit (FBFSS) tomorrow at Dublin’s Gibson Hotel.
In terms of banking and the future of finance delivery in Ireland, Oakes says the most important factor is trust.
He said: “Trust between the consumer, their financial service provider and faith in migrating our day-to-day financial and social interactions into a new digital paradigm.
“Trust has to also be evident between regulators and financial service providers. Banks will not risk executing real innovation if they feel that regulators are inflexible in terms of a risk based supervision and enforcement.
“Fintech firms will not enter the Irish market en masse if they feel that regulators will penalise them for every failure. Consumers will not deal with incumbent or new financial institutions unless they feel that their money is safe and protected by government agencies, especially in the immediate aftermath of the failure of Irish banks and regulatory system.
“The challenge will be to find a way to satisfy all stakeholders in the face of burgeoning alternative banking and payments platforms, giving third parties access to customers’ data held at banks and relying upon artificial intelligence to devise our investment and retirement strategies. That’s the big picture.”
Oakes (above) will also be asking delegates:
He added: “In any event, politics aside, we are heading into the fourth industrial revolution and we are now standing on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another.
“The World Economic Forum says that the scale, scope, and complexity of the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.
“The possibilities are immense. By 2020 at least 66 per cent of the global population will be online. Three to five billion new customers not accounted for in the global economy today will enter the economy by 2025. The world’s biggest banks in 2025 will be technology companies. You could be getting your mortgage from Apple, car insurance for your driverless car from Google and banking with Cogni.”
At tomorrow’s conference, Oakes will have a fireside chat with Anthony Watson on the theme of Disruption: Evolution or Revolution? He will then moderate two afternoon panel sessions – the first one is the Founders Brainstorm Session, where My Money Platform, Fund Recs & Bank of Ireland will tackle reinventing finance through disruptive innovation. The second session will include the ACOI, the Central Bank of Ireland and GRID Finance. It will debate competition, risk and regulation, including fintech trends and whether we can effectively regulate innovate financial services.
Oakes currently works with an international BaaP (Banking as a Platform) ‘fintech’ company and a regulatory data analytics ‘regtech’ company. He has been involved in these fields since 2003. In August 2014, Fintech Ireland became the first registered fintech group in Ireland.
Over the last 18 months, Oakes has been working on establishing the EU payments business of Bank of America Merchant Services, HQed in London, where he was also a company director and led the authorisation with the FCA.
Oakes said: “That took up most of my life until I returned to Ireland a few weeks ago to continue my focus on Fintech Ireland.
“On a day to day basis I work with the executives of the companies where I am a non-executive director to assist and hone their strategies, business models and introduce them to sources of funding like venture capital, private equity, seed funding and innovation hubs. In amongst all this, I still advise firms on regulatory and enforcement issues with the Central Bank of Ireland, the FCA and Australian regulator.”
The wine-enthusiast is involved in the upcoming launch in June of the Irish Chapter of the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce, which has its headquarters in Melbourne.
Peter Oakes, who is a business, regulatory and legal adviser, trained as a lawyer in Australia and then qualified in Britain and Ireland.
He spent a large part of his career with regulators, most notably director at the Central Bank of Ireland responsible for enforcement and financial crime.
Oakes will be speaking at the Future Banking and Financial Services Summit (FBFSS) tomorrow at Dublin’s Gibson Hotel.
In terms of banking and the future of finance delivery in Ireland, Oakes says the most important factor is trust.
He said: “Trust between the consumer, their financial service provider and faith in migrating our day-to-day financial and social interactions into a new digital paradigm.
“Trust has to also be evident between regulators and financial service providers. Banks will not risk executing real innovation if they feel that regulators are inflexible in terms of a risk based supervision and enforcement.
“Fintech firms will not enter the Irish market en masse if they feel that regulators will penalise them for every failure. Consumers will not deal with incumbent or new financial institutions unless they feel that their money is safe and protected by government agencies, especially in the immediate aftermath of the failure of Irish banks and regulatory system.
“The challenge will be to find a way to satisfy all stakeholders in the face of burgeoning alternative banking and payments platforms, giving third parties access to customers’ data held at banks and relying upon artificial intelligence to devise our investment and retirement strategies. That’s the big picture.”
Oakes (above) will also be asking delegates:
- Are central banks and regulators capable of supervising fintech firms?
- What is the potential impact of a Brexit for Ireland and continental Europe’s fintech community? What are the opportunities and threats to Ireland?
- Why doesn’t Ireland play to its strengths in terms of governance, risk and compliance and strive to become a leading global regtech capital?
- Where would you like to see the industry in 10 years time?
He added: “In any event, politics aside, we are heading into the fourth industrial revolution and we are now standing on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another.
“The World Economic Forum says that the scale, scope, and complexity of the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.
“The possibilities are immense. By 2020 at least 66 per cent of the global population will be online. Three to five billion new customers not accounted for in the global economy today will enter the economy by 2025. The world’s biggest banks in 2025 will be technology companies. You could be getting your mortgage from Apple, car insurance for your driverless car from Google and banking with Cogni.”
At tomorrow’s conference, Oakes will have a fireside chat with Anthony Watson on the theme of Disruption: Evolution or Revolution? He will then moderate two afternoon panel sessions – the first one is the Founders Brainstorm Session, where My Money Platform, Fund Recs & Bank of Ireland will tackle reinventing finance through disruptive innovation. The second session will include the ACOI, the Central Bank of Ireland and GRID Finance. It will debate competition, risk and regulation, including fintech trends and whether we can effectively regulate innovate financial services.
Oakes currently works with an international BaaP (Banking as a Platform) ‘fintech’ company and a regulatory data analytics ‘regtech’ company. He has been involved in these fields since 2003. In August 2014, Fintech Ireland became the first registered fintech group in Ireland.
Over the last 18 months, Oakes has been working on establishing the EU payments business of Bank of America Merchant Services, HQed in London, where he was also a company director and led the authorisation with the FCA.
Oakes said: “That took up most of my life until I returned to Ireland a few weeks ago to continue my focus on Fintech Ireland.
“On a day to day basis I work with the executives of the companies where I am a non-executive director to assist and hone their strategies, business models and introduce them to sources of funding like venture capital, private equity, seed funding and innovation hubs. In amongst all this, I still advise firms on regulatory and enforcement issues with the Central Bank of Ireland, the FCA and Australian regulator.”
The wine-enthusiast is involved in the upcoming launch in June of the Irish Chapter of the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce, which has its headquarters in Melbourne.