Fintech partnerships offer banks a fast and convenient way to innovate their product offerings and better serve their customers. Banks can vastly improve their customers' experience without having to incur huge capital expenditures. From the fintechs' perspective, banks provide access to their large customer base, existing infrastructure and big data. The advantages of such partnerships go beyond the monetary benefits. Advancements in cloud and mobile technologies have also led to greater customer demand for better digital banking experiences. This has led to fundamental shifts in the way banks build and maintain relationships with their customers. However, banks still face many challenges when partnering with fintechs. Banks need to navigate the path to innovation, define their digital strategy, modify their culture and find ways to open up to appropriate innovators. 

Join Nuria Alino, Lead of Digital Financial Services (DFS) at International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Jorge A Ruiz, Founder and CEO of above and beyond (a&b), for a discussion on how banks can develop successful partnerships with fintechs. What does the traditional bank-fintech partnership look like? How are these partnerships evolving? Are banks ready for an effective integration with fintechs? What can be done to make it easier for banks to select, experiment and finally partner with the right fintech with a specific application in mind? 
 
About the speakers
 
Nuria Alino is the International Finance Corporation's Lead of Digital Financial Services (DFS) responsible for Partnerships and Innovations at the Financial Institutions Group (FIG). She is responsible for building and cultivating partnerships with leading financial institutions and technology firms (global and regional champions). She globally develops co-investment opportunities, joint advisory activities, and knowledge sharing with key partners. She leads DFS Team's activities and research on digital financial innovation. 
 
Jorge Ruiz is CEO and Founder of above and beyond (a&b). He founded a&b to lead financial institutions in their digital transformation and create the first global fintech-FI interconnected marketplace. Prior to founding a&b, Jorge worked at Citigroup for 18 years. In his last role, he led Citi's efforts to become a global leader in the fintech industry, defining a digital transformation strategy, launching the first global virtual accelerator, hosting 16 innovation programs, creating one of the largest fintech global ecosystems and implementing more than 30 solutions worldwide. 

Kurt Koenigsfest is the CEO of BancoSol S.A. Bolivia since May 2000. BancoSol is a private commercial bank specialized in providing financial solutions to low-income sectors and entrepreneurs in Bolivia. He has held a variety of high responsibility positions in the credit, operations and business development areas of the Bolivian Banking Industry since 1989. He is an active member of a number of banking and microfinance Boards, including Asoban, the Bolivian Private Banking Association, where he acted as Chairman from 2011 until 2014.

Registration link has been shared with Members via email and Members App. 

This webinar is for SME Finance Forum Members only. Contact Farah Siddique fsiddique@ifc.org.