This Thursday, February 25th, the first meeting of Rietumu FinTech Club will take place in Riga in an informal club format.
FinTech Club is called upon to become an active platform for successful startups leaders and fintech specialists to exchange knowledge and experience with representatives of the most innovative Latvian and Baltic companies. Therefore, similar events are also planned in the future.
The first Rietumu FinTech Club meeting will be attended by the Senior Vice-presidents of the bank Renat Lokomet (lending and investments) and Eugene Dugaev (IT and business technology). Mark Andreev will represent the processing centre DECTA, Eugene Kazanin will represent fintech startup Twino and startup Mobilly will be represented by Uldis Paberzis. The topic of discussion for the panel will be the Baltics' opportunity to become a hotspot for the new development of fintech projects. The moderator for the discussion will be Maris Dagis, representing the startup Sellfy.
Let us say a few words about the guest speaker. Eugene Kazanin has recently been appointed head of the startup Twino. He worked abroad in different countries for four years, gaining first-class international experience in the sphere of startup development. Twino is a platform for high-yield non-bank consumer lending in Europe. It is related to the Latvian company FinaBay, which has been on the market since 2009.
According to a Member of the Board at Rietumu Bank, Renat Lokomet, “Development of fintech is one of the most important topics for the bank. Latvia still has the opportunity to take a leading position on the European fintech market, on the condition that the country and public authorities will take practical steps towards the young entrepreneurs, improving the startup “ecosystem”.”
“April last year Rietumu and TechHub Riga organized a competition “Rietumu FinTech Challenge by TechHub Academy”. More than ten teams participated from different countries. We’ve witnessed truly interesting ideas and people able to put them into action. Focusing on fintech goes in line with the bank’s interests, and we think that the Rietumu FinTech Club holding regular events is a step forward and there is strong support from our side,” says Eugene Dugaev, a Member of the Board at the bank.
Rietumu FinTech Club represents the start of the Rietumu Bank and TechHub Riga's work together. Apart from planned meetings and panel discussions of this type, another international fintech startup competition is planned for April – the “Rietumu Fintech Challenge 2016 by TechHub Academy“. Teams from the Baltics, Scandinavia and other European countries will compete for valuable prizes.
TechHub Riga is the biggest Latvian IT and technology startup community, which creates new jobs and promotes knowledge exchange among young entrepreneurs. At the moment there are about 30 startups actively working within TechHub Riga. Among its participants and graduates we should mention such startups as infogr.am, Funderful, Fabula, Froont, Sellfy and MaxTraffic. Additionally, TechHub Riga organises regular events related to entrepreneurship and technology: for example, monthly meetups of TechHub Academy and annual conference TechChill Baltics. The strategic partner of TechHub Riga is Lattelecom.
