This week I attended moneyconf, a very interesting conference where startups and incumbents meet to discuss the future of fintech. Here are some wisdom-pearls I took away from c-level executives of multimillion incumbent companies and startups:

1. “We spend 2.5 billion euro per year on innovation, to run the bank and to change the bank” Francisco González. President of Bbva
2. “You have to change from inside the bank” Francisco González. President of Bbva
3. “The core has to be built by ourselves. If it’s available outside we buy it and we bring it into our systems” Francisco González. President of Bbva
4. “We had a Ferrari, the big mistake was not to pay attention to the rest of things, drivers, roads…” Francisco González. President of Bbva
5. “The most important thing to change for incumbents is having the right management. We had to mix digitals and bankers.” Francisco González. President of Bbva
6. “We alone could not go, we needed the help of the fintech companies” Francisco González. President of Bbva
7. “The disruption of AI has nothing to do with fintech, because the world is going to fundamentally change.” – Neal Cross Chief Innovation officer DBS Bank
8. “85% of all customer service requests are handled by chatbots.” – Neal Cross Chief Innovation officer DBS Bank
9. “At Mastercard we enable people to move from one department/country to another they want to learn, to grow” – Anne Cairns President of Mastercard.
10. “Financial inclusion starts with giving people a digital identity” – Anne Cairns President of Mastercard.
11. banks will realise they need to be on a public or at least semi public network. Peter Smith. Founder and CEO Blockchain.com
12. “the Bitcoin core vs bicoin unlimited issue can be worked around by the industry by moving to other tokens ” Peter Smith. Founder and CEO Blockchain.com
13. “disruption is helping companies raise capital, that’s the innovation I’m interested in, not doing step 9 in the banking settlement process” Peter Smith. Founder and CEO Blockchain.com
14. “ ECB, EIB, can stimulate the real economy by lending to small businesses through LendingCircle” Samir Desai, Founder and CEO of Lending Circle
15. “We return about 6.5-7% a year on our loans. Investors have made £120 million in net interest.” – Samir Desai, Founder and CEO of Lending Circle
16. “The big thing now in Europe is PSD2. Banks will have to provide open API access to current accounts.” – Samir Desai, Founder and CEO of Lending Circle
17. “P2P lending has proven to be resilient. Growth remains 60% even with Brexit” Samir Desai, Founder and CEO of Lending Circle
18. “What banking will be in three years from now is not yet invented” Bernardo Sanchez Incera. Deputy CEO at Societe Generale.
19. “Identity algorithms 20x safer than human.” Brett King, Founder and CEO of Moven
20. “By 2025 the biggest bank will be a technology company, not a bank” Brett King, Founder and CEO of Moven
21. “No human will be able to drive safer than a self-driving car. Decide on investments, build a car faster..” Brett King, Founder and CEO of Moven
22. “The problem with banks is they think always in terms of iterating the branch model.” –Brett King, Founder and CEO of Moven
23. “We’re seeing banking embedded into other services now. That’s when it is most useful, solving real problems.” –Brett King, Founder and CEO of Moven
24. “A futurist is never being wrong today” Brett King, Founder and CEO of Moven
25. “With etoro you can create an account in 60 seconds, fund it with your credit card and buy bitcoin.” Yoni Assia. Founder and CEO of EToro
26. “EToro launches Crypto-currency CopyFund to provide a straightforward way to invest in both Bitcoin and Ethereum online” Yoni Assia. Founder and CEO of EToro
27. “Many financial services still run on fortran and cobol since the 70’s. Blockchain gives an opportunity to rethink all” David Rutter. Founder and managing partner at R3
28. “11.000 computer scientists at goldman sachs. The challenge is to build fast and secure applications” Joanne Hannaford. Partner at Goldman Sachs.
29. “Bitcoin or Ethereum blockchain will be used in the background, the user will not know. E.g @abra @epify “Jon Matonis. Founding Director at Bitcoin Foundation
30. “Any idiot can lend a dollar, it’s getting paid back that’s tricky” Douglas Merrill. Zest Finance.
31. “The car will pay for gas, the phone for calls and data thanks to IoT” Ivan Glazachev. Yandex Money.
32. “There is a huge fight to be the fintech capital of the world” Taavet Hinrikus. CEO of TransferWise.
33. “Innovating to please ourselves vs innovating to please the customers” Yashish Dahiya. Founder and CEO at Policybazaar
34. “People with +10y in the same company try to avoid the erosion. Younger folks see the disruption coming and want to ride it” Scott Walchek Founder and CEO of Trov
35. “Innovation has to come from the top. Don’t do pilots. Anticipate your champions will move on. Appoint full time account mgmnt on both sides. Results will take time. Empower a steering committee with all stakeholders” Scott Walchek Founder and CEO of Trov
36. “We are seeing and pushing a trend towards a cashless society” Rita Liu. Head of Alipay Europe, Middle East and Africa.
37. “Payment technology has to be transparent, seamless” June Yee Felix. President of Verifone Europe.
38. “In the past payment has been very complicated. People want to pay simply. Like Uber.” June Yee Felix. President of Verifone Europe.
39. “San Francisco Venture Capital investment in fintech is double New York, which is double of all of Europe. 2 deals in China are bigger than San Francisco.” Sheel Mohnot Partner at 500Startups
40. “EU regulatory sandox is a great idea we are pushing to get adopted in the US”  Sheel Mohnot Partner at 500Startups
41. “Sharing of KYC information thanks to the blockchain can enable cross border payments in a regulated environment” David Thompson CTO at Western Union
42. Western Union Reveals Pilot Coinbase Integration. David Thompson CTO at Western Union
43. “Banks will do the back end, the Apples and Googles will do front end. As banks, we can’t prevent that happening.” – Anne Boden. CEO at Starling Bank
44. “Trust comes from utility. I trust the bank because I can go to an ATM and get my money out. It works.” Brett King, Founder and CEO of Moven
45. “70% of mobile payments in China are done by wechat and alipay, not by banks” Brett King, Founder and CEO of Moven
46. “Banks will reduce their workforce 40% by 2025, but there are not enough AI people …yet” Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData
47. “Machine intelligence is the last invention that humans will ever need to make” Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData
48. “If banks figure out transparency and user experience they might reinvent themselves. But many won’t make it.” – Taavet Hinrikus. CEO of TransferWise.
49. “The only bank branch that matters is the one we carry in our pockets.” – Taavet Hinrikus. CEO of TransferWise.
50. “There is still no alternative to a bank to store your money. This will change” Taavet Hinrikus. CEO of TransferWise.
51. “Currencies are like loyalty points with a standing army” David Birch, Director of Innovation at Consult Hyperion
52. “Sending money to your mother in the philipines will be free” Mike Laven CEO at Currency Cloud
53. “Central banks, commercial banks, companies, criptography, communities will be 5 creators of currency in the future.” David Birch, Director of Innovation at Consult Hyperion
54. “The world is going to have a better way to send money between countries. This can be Bitcoin, Ethereum..” Mike Laven CEO at Currency Cloud
55. “Our customers are spending 15-50hrs / year with their bank account online and only 1-2hrs in branch.” Derek White. Global head of customer solutions at Bbva
56. “At Bbva we take selfie videos, share them across our google social network and teach each other” Derek White. Global head of customer solutions at Bbva
57. If the developer understands how the problem is solved by the machine it’s not AI. That’s just rule based. AI is not taught the solution
58. “Insurance underwriters, claims representatives, bank representatives, and financial analysts jobs will be replaced by robots” Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData
59. “80% of work in Financial advisory, fraud detection, legal work, AML, customer services, Backoffice, will be done AI-first.” Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData
60. “Mobile first is outdated. We are going to AI first” Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData
61. “India is leading the way in the path to financial inclusion. Universal ID. Removing cash..” Michael Schlein. CEO at Accion
62. “Historically credit is only given to people who you have data on. Big data will bank the unbanked” Michael Schlein. CEO at Accion
63. “The UK post brexit will be so busy negotiating banana import rules that they will have no time for fintech” David Birch, Director of Innovation at Consult Hyperion
64. “The EU passport is quite cool, in USA you need to deal with different regulation per state” Taavet Hinrikus. CEO of TransferWise.