The business of banking is reaching a critical inflection point as ‘challengers’ take market share and incumbents implement strategies to accelerate their digital transformation efforts to enhance customer journeys.

FinAi News Ignite, which will take place on March 2-3 at the Grand Hyatt in Seattle, is an invitation-only practitioners’ retreat that will explore the evolution of the industry over the next five to ten years. While FinAi News Build, our most recent event, focused on internal best practices financial services organizations should adopt to drive innovation, Ignite will look at how external technologies and emerging tools from outside of the traditional ecosystem will help institutions evolve.

The industry’s transition from physical stores of value to data-driven digital vaults is adding pressure on incumbents to reinvent their business models. Indeed, ‘innovate or die’ is a harsh reality many institutions face, while a growing constituency sees partnerships as the path forward.

The imperative to develop new ways of working, aided by technology with the right balance of human intervention, is top of mind when considering paths forward. A recent McKinsey study positioned banks in four stages of development: market leaders; resilients; followers and challenged institutions. For the challenged, it advises they can increase their share of wallet by extending their offerings beyond traditional banking products, a classic “ecosystem play” taking a page from startup playbooks.

Participants at FinAi News Ignite will have exclusive opportunities to talk to industry experts and brainstorm on how to leverage emerging technologies. We will review case studies and learn about what the future customer experience will look like. Participants will delve into the roles data and AI play on the march towards automation and embedded financial services. Meanwhile, the evolution of the business banking segment, a burgeoning area of interest among startups and big banks and the role of technology in moving innovation forward, will be a prominent topic of discussion throughout.

A selection of carefully curated startup demos will give participants direct exposure to forward-looking companies that seek to partner with incumbents to address evolving problems in the fintech space and enable financial institutions to further their innovation capabilities.

Ignite is not a large event with surface-level panels and pre-cooked speeches. It will be an intimate opportunity designed to stimulate discussion among a select group of senior industry leaders, from both startup and incumbent perspectives. Speakers on the agenda include Anupam Sinha, managing director and global head of domestic payments and receivables at Citibank; Herman Man, chief product officer at BlueVine; Rick Winslow, chief experience officer at Kabbage; Stephanie Reiley, director of product at BBVA-owned Simple Finance; Anu Shultes, CEO of LendUp and Matt Oppenheimer, CEO of Remitly.

At Ignite, we will identify and share best practices and ideas as the industry charts the next chapter of its development. Join us to explore the next set of opportunities new technologies will bring to the future of banking.

Request your invitation here.