Buttonwood Gathering: The Valley Meets the Street – NYC

In five years time, the finance sector will be very different from what it is today.  A range of new products, built on recent innovations spanning mobile money and robo-advisors to bitcoin and the block chain, and new players alongside older ones will create new opportunities to serve customers better, to profit more.  These changes will also potentially  bring dangers, such as even greater incidence of cyber crime, that will require better, smarter regulation.  These changes have  big implications, not just for banks, insurers and investment firms, but also for the wider economy served by the finance sector.

Join The Economist Events to explore how fintech is already transforming many core banking functions, such as deposits, loans and processing payments. Investment in innovative financial technologies has tripled since 2008 and analysts predict that it will continue to grow at an unprecedented pace. Business and retail consumers are starting to see benefits. Lending Club is facilitating over $1 billion of peer-to-peer loans a quarter. Small businesses are increasingly turning to such “crowd-based lending” to secure cheaper loans. Bitcoin is just one way, and perhaps one of the least significant ways, in which blockchain technology may change the world.