Despatches: Fintech Week Tel Aviv
TL;DR Fintech Calling delivered an exceptional event
As a sponsor you’d expect us to be bullish about Fintech Week Tel Aviv but this was the third year we have supported it so we can genuinely benchmark it against previous events run by Jonny Paul aka Fintech Calling.
In 2020, one of the highlights was a keynote by the UK Financial Conduct Authority — the first time they’d spoken at an Israeli Fintech conference —and it was our first outing as a sponsor and a great opportunity to talk about our work with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange supporting their blockchain-backed Securities Lending Platform.
Last year, it was virtual — inevitable given Covid — but one of the few virtual events that delivered anything like an in-person conference experience thanks to Jonny’s choice of platform — Accel-backed Airmeet in case you are wondering!
However, I’m pleased to say that this year it was in-person and the atmosphere was electric. As a matter of fact, not unlike the buzz around the first in-person event hosted by the Global Blockchain Business Council in New York last September.
In another coup, Jonny secured the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) as a platinum sponsor alongside DIGISEQ, Fireblocks and OpenPayd, demonstrating concretely the value of the Abrahams Accord agreement between the UAE and Israel signed in 2020. DIFC was represented by its Chief Business Development Officer, Salmaan Jaffery, and Sector Head for Fintech Business Development, Mohammad Alblooshi.
The conference was opened by the Chairman of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Arik Steinberg, with the opening keynote delivered by Salmaan Jaffery.
Leading Israeli data center provider, MedOne, also took advantage of the conference to announce their partnership with us and Herzliya-based cloud service provider Ridge, and joined us on our stand.
Whereas Day 1 focused primarily on the state of play in Fintech, Day 2 was given over to the continuing impact of new and emerging technologies such as blockchain, crypto (not the same thing of course), Decentralised Finance (DeFi), Embedded Payments with the opening keynote delivered by our VP Strategy, Csilla Zsigri, looking at The DLT Landscape One Year On.
Day 2 was a great success and even featured a panel on NFTs: Real or Imaginary? which was actually a very thoughtful discussion. A timely one too given the controversy surrounding the $APE tokens airdrop by Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Apes Yacht Club which an enterprising trader leveraged in a novel way, netting a notional $1.1m worth of ApeCoin in the process.
Day 3 we reconvened at Herzog Tower where the Founder and CEO of OurCrowd, Jon Medved, delivered a compelling opening keynote highlighting just how successful the Israeli startup nation continues to be, a “well-oiled machine” as he put it, with 10% of the world’s unicorns founded here. An extraordinary achievement for a country with one tenth of one percent of the world’s population.
Another first on Day 3 saw Shoham Ben Rubi from the Israel Securities Authority announce the first ISA-sponsored Blockchain Finance Israel Hackathon at Start-up Nation Central here in Tel Aviv.
In summary, a tremendous event and one that we are already looking forward to sponsoring and participating in next year. I will leave the last word to the UAE-Israel Business Council and their comment on the panel discussion Investment opportunities Israel and the Gulf: Where do opportunities lie? moderated by Jonny.
