News & Opinions

Financial inclusion, European sovereignty and innovation are the main drivers for Europe to develop a CBDC

What is it like to build and sell a regtech/fintech company in 5 years? We asked entrepreneur Klaas Van Imschoot, co-founder of b-Fine

What does it mean to transform a bank into a self-organisation? We asked Klaas Ariaans of ABN AMRO what his lessons learned are after implementing this philosophy 4 years ago

We spoke wit Mark Aldred, VP of International Sales at Auriga about banks, their branches and the impact of technology on the onmichannel customer experience (CX)

Early Wage Access can make a world of difference, if implemented correctly and with the right mindset, like Scudi and Rie Sordo are doing

With Catherine Bourin and Julien Froumouth, we discussed a recent survey highlighting the need for more financial education on the sustainable finance agenda

The European Commission recently issued a now proposal to speed up the process of making instant payments the new normal. What does this mean for the banking and payments industry?

Composable Banking of Mambu explains how you can select best-of-breed solutions around your core and build the bank you want to be, like Lego blocks

Learn how ROOV made the shift to B2B, grasping the opportunities of Open Banking and PSD2 to actively support the fight against poverty

12 months after his first visit, we invited Morgan Wirtz again to share us his journey of launching the bank Rise

We discussed the key learnings of Fincog's recent study on Banking for Tomorrow with Jeroen de Bel, Founder of Fincog and Branko Greganovic, of NLB

The first new clearing bank in the UK in 250 years, ClearBank is set to transform the payments industry with embedded banking and clearing services

Digital exclusion is a growing problem in Belgium. We discussed the latest statistics with Linde Verheyden of BNP Paribas Fortis and Ilse Mariën of Cabinet Bart Somers

DORA, Digital Operational Resilience Act it coming. How will it impact the way organisations communicate? Will it make negotiations easier?

We learned from Roland van der Vorst, Head of Innovation Rabobank about the importance of cooperative thinking in a global food revolution

With 8 executives we discussed the opportunities to balance the P&L in payments

With a delay of 1,5 years, the EC is now ready to review PSD2. What does this mean? We spoke to Febelfin and ESBG

At Money2020 Europe, we asked Jan-Willem van der Schoot about Mastercard's new strategic positioning of Debit Mastercard, Click-to-Pay and tokenisation

We asked Glen Fernandes of Euroclear to explain how their partnership with Fnality may disrupt capital markets

ClearBank is unique in its clearing, accounts, and embedded finance offering, we spoke to their CEO Charles McManus

Jo Coutuer is CDO at BNP Paribas Fortis for 6 years now, we asked him for his lessons learned to build a data-driven bank

The role of process mining in achieving operational excellence & accelerating digital transformation by Dynafin Consulting, proud partner of SOFTWARE AG

Money20/20 Europe felt different for me this year, this is why

Read how global banking authority Paolo Sironi believes the platform economie will transform banking as we know it

We discussed with Bernard Nicolay, Academic Director at Solvay Business School how he looks at the future of money

We cannot talk about financial inclusion and exclusion without looking at digital inclusion

How can banks balance the change that comes with the new way of working and the war for talent? We spoke to Jean-Philippe Thirion of TriFinance, Business Unit Leader Financial Institutions

Are banks really setting the right priorities in product development? We spoke with Tiina Laukkonen of Amazon about how they look at innovations in corporate payments.

Spuerkeess used blockchain technology to disrupt their student loan processes. Read here how they did this, why they did so and how successful it is

Learn how Axa Bank and Crelan transformed their performance management, becoming true business partners through Anaplan's connected planning

We spoke with Sandra Phlippen, Chief Economist at ABN AMRO about the impact of the Russie-Ukraine conflict on the banking industry and sustainability

We invited Discai CEO Fabrice Deprez for a chat on KBC Banks's recent BankTech initiative in their fight against financial crime

With Achim Thienel, of Finastra, we investigated the impact of cloud on banking and how it accelerates digital innovation

We asked Joris Krijger, AI&Ethics Officer at De Volksbank how to deal with AI, data, ML in an ethical way

Do we need digital cash like CBDC, Central Bank Digital Currencies? What value do they bring? And how do they compare to crypto?

What is Greenwashing and how big is the issue in financial services? It is something that can easily be stopped?

With new societal shifts, ESG, Ukraine war, inclusion... come new challenges that required a new way of banking

What's the buzz about niche banking, also known as affinity banking? A USP beyond banking, clear purpose and identification with the community

What's the added value for artists having their art linked to an NFT? How will the Metaverse impact our mental rest? We spoke to Jil Haberstig

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry, including Nasir Zubairi of the LHoFT

We spoke to Katrien Dewijngaert, GM Stratey and Transformation at KBC about KATE their AI driven virtual assistant

We invited Madeleine Debney, COO and Co-Founder of financial wellness platform Otto to talk about financial stress, financial wellness and wellbeing

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry, including Jonathan Prince of Finologee

SurePay joined us to explain the value of IBAN-Name Check in fraud prevention for banks as a tool to confirm the name of the payee

Bank Carige rolls out its first fully-digital branch with Auriga

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry. Sociéré Générale also contributed.

Read how Rabobank is influencing the Netherland's living conditions, though sustainable finance and making houses more accessible

AI and analytics are transforming banking and financial services, read from these learnings with Tableau, SWIFT and ABN AMRO how to reach the full potential

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry. Eric Mouilleron was one of the international contributors

Purpose and sustainability are the foundations of Triodos Bank, we asked Daan Vandevelde, Director Retail Banking how he looks at Banking for Good

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry. Angela Nickel, CEO of COMO Global was one of them

The RegTechBlackBook was Koen's first big project, now he launched The Sequel, a bundle full of insights and interpretations of regtech influencers worldwide

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry. Christophe Bourbier was one of the international contributors

Virtual Cards in B2B e-commerce help companies overcome some of their payments challenges, according to Matthijs Koorn, Research Director Payments at MGI Research

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry. Nicolas Gerard, executive of State Street Bank was one of them.

Tim Dierckxsens co-founded Venly with the ambition to make blockchain, virtual crypto wallets and NFT management accessible through a single API. What is his vision on money?

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry. Pascal Morosini, CEO of i-Hub was one of them.

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry. Jacques Pütz, CEO of LUXHUB was one of them.

With a strong team, Morgan Wirtz is building Rise, a neobank for teens to lift financial education to help them better manage their finances and reduce financial stress

EBRC and The Banking Scene joined forces to interview key stakeholders from Luxembourg’s FinTech and banking industry. Alexandre Castaing of RBC was one of them.

With a long history in purposeful banking, we invited their chairwomen to talk about how they look at banking for good today

How important are bank Fintech Partnerships in payments and how to achieve great partnerships? We spoke with Banking Circle, BNP Paribas and PayBelgium

Is it time to talk more about the banking creations with impact instead of purely looking at technological advancement in fintech?

Automation , RPA and and more intelligent ML solution can help banks grow employee engagement and customer inclusion

David Bohn of MyBudget was our guest to talk about financial wellbeing and their business in Australia to get society financially fitter

In the light of the second anniversary of PSD2s RTS, we discussed the state of open banking in B2B with Isabel Group and ABN AMRO

How can automation and RPA contribute on both strategic and tactical level to bank's ESG ambitions? We spoke to Chris Skinner, PwC, UiPath and NatWest

The open banking journey of Deutsche Bank started in 2015 with de development of an API Program. Joris Hensen shared their lessons learned

The Unexplored Territory of Gaming for Banks: an introduction in platformication and gamification of banking and bankification of gaming

Banks struggle to apply the vision and ambitions they have to improve and grow their contributions to a greener and better society, how can automation help?

What are the challenges ahead before banks embrace crypto assets and NFTs as part of their value proposition, and how could this look like?

ABN AMRO Belgium is supporting many initiatives for a greener, EGS-friendly future, and this is how they accelerate the sustainable shift in Belgium

With PayBelgium and Emerging Payments Association we investigate their contributions to innovations in payments

Like Heracles changed the rules to clean the Augean stable, the banking and fintech industry need to reinvent their approach to financial wellbeing.

Green mortgages for sustainable living is more than a label. With a direct impact on a bank's (future) financial results, acting now is imperative for the industry

With the rise of RPA-based attended bots we are getting closer to a bot for every employee. What is required to make this a reality?

With PSD2 and open banking to stimulate innovation, EPI and the digital euro (CBDC) are told to create more uniformity across Europe

We all know the struggles of a partnership between banks and fintech companies, but what are the remedies?

As automation tools in banking get smarter, evolving from RPA to intelligent automation, bots evolve from being a virtual assistant to a genuine colleague

The human factors behind automation at ING and NIBC Bank: employee engagement, customer experience and cost avoidance

It is time to rethink digital banking, to align it to customer expectations and to make it more human again in a connected way.

Innovations in cards and payments are endless these days, and retail banks will need to make strategic dilemmas to deal with them.

How more data points end up with more creative credit scoring models to enhance financial inclusion in developing regions like Asia and Africa

On April 15 we discussed with Peter Theunis of Radar Payments what is shaking the cards and payments industry, find the most relevant insights in this blog

Automation in Banking success does not depend on technology, but the leaders that drive a cultural change to embrace automation as a part of the job

Automation in Banking to setup control mechanisms to find and fix errors in banking processes, improve data quality of central functions and augment the value of employees

With Véronique Léonard, CFO we spoke how Bank J. Van Breda & C° are looking at banking for good, purposeful banking and sustainability and ESG

Don't make your RPA project a cost-cutter. This blog identified a couple of concrete, measurable results how RPA improved the business of a bank

With Marc Lauwers, CEO of Argenta, we discussed what purpose and sustainability means to them and how they contribute to a better future for human and society

SME Banking will never be the same again: COVID-19 accelerated the need for digital banking and more specifically for SMEs

How can wealth managers provide their clients with comprehensive data and analytics through a broad mix of digital channels, so they can make more informed investment decisions?

What must change for banks to become true financial advisors, doctors of a customer's financial health?

Everyone talks about automation in banking, but what do bankers really know about automation, RPA and intelligent automation, where do they see the gains and opportunities?

With YTS (Yolt Technology Services), we investigated the possibilities of PSD2, Open banking and open finance to turn it into a remedy for people and businesses to recover from COVID-19

With Karel Baert, CEO and Claire Godding, Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Febelfin, Belgian Federation of banks, we discussed what "Banking for Good" means to them

Find out what executives from Spotify, State Street Bank and DFCG, the French Centre of CFOs thought us of how to make your RPA, automation and intelligent automation projects a success

We used an innovative interview method called the ‘portable kit study’ that involved asking people to take everything out of their bags and wallets and talk us through what they carry with them on a daily basis, cash, cards

We invited Hedwige Nuyens, Managing Director of IBF to talk about the bank of the future, where we spoke about COVID-19, digital, branches, BigTech, CBDC, crypto, the role of savings and community banks and much more

Erin B. Taylor provides a couple of useful tools that can help to better understand how consumers feel and think about, and act with money

Together with Peter Theunis of Radar Payments and BPC Banking Technologies and Jeroen de Bel of Fincog, we investigated how digital banking changed and what their future holds

We spoke with Thomas Courtois, CEO of neobank Nickel about Financial Inclusion and he shared us what this means to them and how they achieve this by living to their values: universality, simplicity, utility and benevolence

Aion surveyed over 1,000 Belgians and found that over 75% of Belgians of all ages feel it’s important to be financially prepared, but more than 50% said that they didn’t feel sufficiently prepared for the future.

What were the most popular opinions on The Banking Scene's website?

Predicting 2021 with Chris Skinner: How will economy evolve, and fintechs and banks? What to expect from challenger banks and what is key to make them more relevant?

Monster and Myths of Innovation are everywhere, in all industries. The last session of The Banking Scene Afterwork was a conversation about those monsters and how to cope with it.

We discuss what open finance is, what its impact is for financial services, where the low-hanging fruit is and how to grasp these opportunities

The Banking Scene spoke to Axel Weiss, Head of Payments at the German Savings Bank Association (DSGV) about the latest trends in payments and the impact of ’SWIFT’s new strategy for their members

We invited David Versteeg, Chief Digital Officer at van Lanschot Kempen to share us their digital transformation journey

Kate is KBC's digital assistant that will personally and proactively assist customers in making their financial life easier, through AI, automation and personalisation

Hyperautomation - an answer to automate more complex customer and employee journeys of a bank by combining RPA, Machine Learning and other AI techniques

6 Lessons from Customer Experience (CX) with clear examples of the banking industry and more specifically in B2B

Founded in 1973, SWIFT is the one the connects the dots in financial services. What is their new strategy and collaboration model for banks?

Will video banking be the new way for banks to engage with customers? We spoke with Klaas Ariaans, Managing Director Personal Banking at ABN AMRO Bank

Learn how Hyperautomation can grow the business of Microfinance Institutions while increasing customer experience with a mix of RPA and Machine Learning - UiPath

What can we learn from Minna Technologies and ING in the way they partner? A fintech and a bank about the importance of communication and expectation management

Read my thought on personalized banking, after reading Comarch' white paper, called "Personalization of Banking Services via Digital Transformation"

What can conventional banking learn from Islamic banking and what is the future of Islamic banking and Islamic fintech? We spoke with Wajeeha H. Awadh of Al Baraka Banking Group

What does it mean for a bank to be open? What value will it bring to this bank and its customers? How did the industry do thus far?

One-size-fits-all is over: we need financial services innovation for women. They think differently about money, they talk different about it and they act different.

Key conclusions from a discussion with Jo Vercammen the state of crypto, cbcd, central bank digital currency and blockchain and how it affect the banking industry

Prices in the banking industry are not always very transparent. Belgian's newest bank, Aion, countered this by setting a business model based on a membership.

Our conversation with 2 experts of UiPath, Guy Kirkwood and Amit Kumar demonstrated that automation and RPA are making the banking industry more human on multiple fronts

Read my lessons from The Banking Scene Summer Event on Banks Doing Digital, with Chris Skinner (thefinanser.com), Benoit Legrand (ING) and Karin van Hoecke (KBC)

For many entrepreneurs, microlending is vital to the required financial inclusion to set up a business. In Belgium, the company microStart gets support in microfinance by Accenture and BNP Paribas Fortis

June 11 was a good day! Jan van Vonno, Research Director at Tink was our special guest at The Banking Scene Afterwork to answer all the questions I had on their recent study, titled: 'the investments and returns of open banking'.

Make sure Operational Resilience is on top of your agenda, whether you work in a bank, or a fintech, in risk or sales, compliance or IT

A bank must support its customers in having a financially balanced life, helping them to reduce financial stress by improving their financial wellbeing.

Bank branches are not dead, but how can they get most value out of that, at a low cost? Post COVID this question is even more pressing than in 2019

How has COVID-19 affected the way banks start new fintech relationships? Today people are going back to their old reflexes. Today they go back to the companies close to them, it takes longer to have a relationship and they require more effort in trust between the involved organisations.

The SME banking segment is booming business in the fintech industry for years. COVID will accelerate this process for multiple reason, here is why

COVID-19 changed the way the banking industry worked. What will be the long-term impact? The key messages of The Banking Scene Afterwork 23 April with special guest Guy Claes

COVID-19 is the biggest remote working Proof Of Concept… ever! Everyone needs to rethink how they work, shop and live. From one day to the next, we are all living in a completely new context, with new needs and different problems to manage and also with great new ideas to anticipate those needs and problems.

What will be the longterm impact of COVID-19 on the way we pay in Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg? From contactless to no contact, biometrics and instant

How COVID-19 changed our perception on cash, contactless, and short-term also on innovation in payments

Who will be the winners and losers of this crisis in the financial technology industry, why this crisis is fundamentally different from the one in 2008, and why China will take a fundamentally different approach to resolve the economic crisis in the period to come.

A talk with Jo Caudron, about the societal transformation in the coming 10 years and the impact on the banking industry

Koen Vanderhoydonk chaired our conference #TBSCONF20LUX, on January 30th in Luxembourg. You probably remember this was about trust, the central theme of The Banking Scene this year.

At the launch of a new challenger bank in Belgium, Aion, The Banking Scene had the chance to interview their CCO Wojciech Sass

6 learning from the panel I moderated at Finovate: “Successes & Challenges Faced Since We Went Live With Open Banking”

Brian Bushnell, shares his insights on how banks can become more TRUSTED by mutualizing services at #TBSCONF20LUX

A78 is built to facilitate communication between fintech and banks in the context of PSD2

Looking back at The Banking Scene 2020 Luxembourg: after movie #TBSCONF20LUX

How is N26 looking at trust? How did the lack of trust in banks helped them in building trust for their customers, today and in the future?

Trust in financial services is changing. Where does this change come from, what is the impact? Based on Rachel Botsman's "Who can you trust?"

Open Banking and PSD2: an evaluation by Belfius' Director of Product Management Payments and Credit Arnaud Delputz

The past decade provided a wave of new technologies with tremendous opportunities, the coming years, the banking industry will start to understand how to use it for more human banking

The future of Instant Payments and Cards - The Round Table Sessions (December 3rd) by The Banking Scene, a testimonial by Inna Kostiuk

The Open Banking Interviews with Nathalie Knops, Head of Business Transformation at Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL)

The Open Banking Interviews with Tjeerd Tesselaar, Area Lead Product Development & Partner Management and Nico Strauss, Tride Lead B2B Services at Rabobank

Frictionless and biometric payments require a consumer to allow you in his inner circle. How far can you go? A few examples

The Open Banking Interviews with Marc Lauwers, CEO and Inge Ampe, CCO of Argenta on their views on Open Banking, PSD2 and how it impacts Argenta's business model

Mortgage loans are the new battlefield for innovation. Why is it so hard to innovate in this business line?

A blog about the rise of Instant Mortgage, Open Mortgage, and the quest for the best customer journey to look for a real estate property

The Open Banking Interviews with Karel Van Eetvelt, CEO, Febelfin

The biggest impact of PSD2 for corporates will be in the new way services providers think of financial services in the near future and how they will provide it to the end-customer.

Read what Jasper Nienhuijs, Head of Market Management at de Volksbank thinks about PSD2 and Open Banking

The Open Banking Interviews: Wajeeha Hussain Awadh, Section Head of Digital Banking & Fintech, Al Baraka Banking Group

Did something revolutionary happen? Did PSD2 hit the headlines? Were consumers quickly adapting their financial behavior? Was there the so long predicted shake-up of the market? Did banks go bankrupt because fintech and Bigtech took over?

The Open Banking Interviews with Laurent Dumont, Digital Banking Manager and Kris Roggeman, Squad Leader Open Banking at Crelan

The Open Banking Interviews, with Maarten Verboven, Director of Open Banking at BNP Paribas Fortis

What role does Visa play in the game of invisible and frictionless payments? And how do they support keeping customers in control of consumption?

Open Banking Interview with Fanny Solany, Head of Digital, Retail & Markets Regulation, CaixaBank

Open Banking Interview with Ali Niknam, CEO of bunq Bank

Non-bank players are looking for new market in the banking space: Immoweb wants to go into mortgage loans

The Open Banking Interviews with Raphael d'Ostuni, Head of Open Banking and Partnerships at Keytrade Bank

How does Starling Bank look at Open Banking and PSD2? Read about it in this episode of the Open Banking Interviews with Helen Bierton, Head of Banking, Starling Bank

Rabobank showed the intention to take over Eneco? What is behind this move? How are banks increasing their societal relevance with this potential takeover?

How does KBC look at PSD2 and Open Banking? We talked about this with Karin Van Hoecke, General Manager Digital Transformation, KBC Bank & Insurance Belgium

ATMs and cash remain a hot topic in discussing banking and financial services in Belgium. What would be the reason that supermarkets are hesitant to invest in their own ATMs?

ABN AMRO is betting high on APIs, how do they think about Open Banking and PSD2? Read all about it in our conversation with Koen Adolfs, Product Owner & API Evangelist, ABN AMRO Bank

Open Banking is only possible with an open mindset. If the technology is not a succes of that, it will not work

The Open Banking Interviews: Daniel Van Delft, Country Manager Visa, Netherlands

Deutsche Bank has an API Platform and they were eager to share more about it with The Banking Scene in an interview with Joris Hensen, Founder and Co-Lead of their API Program

Money 20/20 Europe report by The Banking Scene: what are a bank's key threats today?

Inna went to Money 20/20 with Fintech Belgium and left her testomial for The Banking Scene and all that wish to read it

Inna attended The Banking Scene Conference (#tbsconf19) and shared her impressions with us

Fintech and banks is all about collaboration these days thanks to open banking etc... what makes a great collaboration?

Lies Van Hemerlijck represented The Banking Scene at Know Conference 2019 and she was happy to share her take aways

Innovation in Payments, what is it all about?

Apple launched it AppleCard, a new feature in the Apple ecosystem. It is really about payments? Or should we look in the direction of identity?

The Banking Scene attended Money 2020 Asia. What were the key takeaways from this highly valued conference?

The future of banking will be determined by PSD2 and Open Banking. How will banking look like in the future?

How can banks grow their relevance for society? Some banks already start thinking out of the box.

Bigtech keep growing and they keep trying to get hold on financial services. Will they succeed?

15 years to rediscuss the gentlemen’s agreement on 24 free cash withdrawals

As banks start adopting instant payments, the quest for additional revenuew through this new payment means remains complicated

An explanation of ontology-centric banking, semantic banking

Rik Coeckelbergs participated in the test period of KBC wearables, contactless payments. Read his testimonial here

Revolut has a banking licence, what does this mean for the banking industry? And why did they go to Lithuania for this?

Revolut hired a country manager for Belgium, what does this mean in terms of their local ambitions?

Open Banking will change the way we bank, not just the way we pay

Contactless is still perceived as unsafe, yet statistic show another view. What are the myths behind this?

As society evolves from less cash to cashless, national banks start to react

Where is Belgium today in term of mobile and contactless payments? What is the impact on cash usage?