FinovateFall 2022 ended last week. If you were there, then thanks for helping make the conference our largest, and most well-attended yet.

And if you were not there, then we’ve got good news and better news for you. The good news is that we’re sharing some of the mainstage highlights from FinovateFall 2022 below. The better news is that we’re going to do it all over again next year — so stay tuned!

You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

Whether the enabling force is a technology or a partnership, one big takeaway from the conversations on Day One of FinovateFall 2022 was this: it is critical for financial institutions to take advantage of the resources – technological and organizational – outside of their immediate purview in order to compete, grow, and thrive.

In the morning, with presentations from Apiture’s Chris Cox and InterSystems’ Joe Lichtenberg, the emphasis was on enabling technologies that empower financial institutions to turn data into business insights. Jody Bhagat of Personetics showed how even mid-sized banks can leverage the combination of human talent and digital technology to provide superior customer service and solutions like advanced money management.

In the afternoon, our mainstage speakers turned their attention to the transformative power of good partnerships. As a theme that would extend into Day Two, forging productive partnerships between fintechs and financial institutions is a challenge that smart companies are more than willing to meet. Our Power Panel, featuring financial services professionals from Seattle Bank, Partnership Fund for New York City, FTV Capital, TD Bank Group, and Experian, showed why and how banks and fintechs can move from competition to collaboration and co-creation.

Getting It Done — The Right Way

If Day One of FinovateFall articulated the opportunity that exists for banks and fintechs, Day Two was all about helping them seize it. Experian’s Greg Wright led off in the morning with a discussion on how companies can maximize their successful innovation initiatives. Cornerstone Advisors’ Sam Kilmer followed-up with words of wisdom to help fintech companies seal more and better deals faster with financial institutions eager to supercharge their offerings with new fintech solutions.

In the afternoon, the discussion shifted to the new rules of engagement when it comes to customers and “future-proofing” innovation. Led by Beyond the Arc’s Steven Ramirez, our Power Panel on Customer Experience examined the new landscape in which banks thought of more as apps than as brick and mortar businesses. With experts from Oak HC/FT, Dave, Fidelity Investments, and Quavo, the panel showed how personalization, gamification, and visualization are key elements in the contemporary customer engagement strategy.

And speaking of “the right way”, VantageScore’s Rikard Bandebo shared insights into new tools to help financial institutions engage with “newly lendable’ customers and promote financial inclusion. Pointing out the differing impact of credit scoring models on different communities and demographics, Bandebo explained how new analytic approaches can empower both lenders and borrowers.

What We Learned from Best of Show

Our Best of Show award is more than a great opportunity for our attendees to reward those fintech innovators whose technologies they believe are most likely to make a big difference. The awards also serve as an excellent heat check on the latest developments from some of the world’s most innovative fintech companies and entrepreneurs.

Two of the companies to take home Best of Show trophies from FinovateFall 2022 are innovators that have proven their mettle before. Horizn, with its platform that maximizes the impact of digital transformation, is a five-time Finovate Best of Show winner. LemonadeLXP earned a Finovate Best of Show award back in 2019 for its Launchfire employee and customer engagement solution. Notice a theme? For one, both companies are great representatives of the fintech innovation taking place in Canada – Horizn is headquartered in Toronto, LemonadeLXP is based in Ottawa. For two, both Horizn and LemonadeLXP are examples of companies innovating in the critical second step in digital transformation: the challenge of turning “front line staff into digital experts” and driving “mass adoption of new platforms and digital capabilities” for customers and employees alike.

Hats off to our other Best of Show winners, as well – including Themis, Quilo, and Debbie, each of which won Best of Show last week in their Finovate debuts. And the second time was certainly the charm for New York-based data insights and analysis firm Stratyfy, which won Best of Show last week in its second trip to the Finovate stage. The company’s UnBias technology underscores the role that technology companies will play in helping financial institutions and fintechs to find and undo the bias that undermines fair and equitable policies and practices.

Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing

If there is a third takeaway from FinovateFall worth sharing here, it is this one: there ain’t nothing like a live, in-person fintech conference. And while there may be some events that do not feel much different to the average attendee regardless of whether the presentations are in-person or digital, the same cannot be said of Finovate, the so-called “DisneyLand of Fintech.” From the edge-of-your-seat excitement (and, sometimes, anxiety) during a live on-stage fintech demo to the must-see-it-to-believe-it antics of our Finovate Fintech Fight Club combatants to a fully-packed networking hall, Finovate is a people thing. And when events like ours help put the right people together, who knows what kind of magic our attendees, speakers, demoing companies, and sponsors will create?

Photo by Albin Berlin