Patrick Schwerdtfeger is a business futurist specializing in technology trends including fintech, blockchain and artificial intelligence. Approximately 20% of his business is in the financial sector including banks, lending firms and insurance companies. Patrick is the author of the award-winning book Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed (2011, Wiley) and a regular speaker for Bloomberg TV. He has lectured at various academic institutions including Purdue and Stanford Universities. Fintech is revolutionizing the banking and insurance industries and Patrick has covered the topic both from the institutional perspective and also from the entrepreneurial perspective. Specific topics include blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and algorithmic stock market trading. Patrick’s focus on disruptive innovation and exponential technologies energizes and enlightens event attendees.
Past speaking clients include:
Recent speaking destinations include:
Expert on Fintech Technologies
There are essentially two driving forces behind the Fintech movement. The first is blockchain protocol and the second is machine learning. The interesting thing is that the companies most threatened by these technologies are the same companies who are investing in their development. Banks and insurance companies could eventually be wiped out by these innovations. But until that happens, they’re furiously investing in the technology. Why? Because they’re trying to find ways to coexist with the technology. They’re looking for ways to streamline their own business models to increase profits and reduce redundancies. Any keynote presentation on Fintech must advise industry participants on the use cases that are delivering positive ROI in today’s interconnected financial sector.
Indeed, there are plenty of efficiencies to be had. Blockchain, in particular, offers tremendous process-oriented innovations in the area of identity verification and transaction processing. The largest opportunities involve the intersection of different business models. Personal identity is something that needs to be verified with every financial institution that people interact with. Rather than duplicating the same process at each one, an independent blockchain-based identity ledger would allow customers to grant access to their immutable identity record with a single click. This is a perfect example of a process efficiency available through blockchain technology.
Patrick builds his keynote programs by accumulating and studying case histories and success stories. In new fields like Fintech, the best way to do that is by following the innovative startups and private equity investments in the industry. Some of the leading Fintech companies include:
- SoFi: Loans, Wealth Management and Life Insurance
- Kabbage: Small Business Loans for the Real World
- Robinhood: Free Stock Trading
- Wealthfront: Planning & Investing Made Easy
- Addepar: Investment Management Platform for Investors and Advisors
- Commonbond: Student Loan Refinancing & Consolidation
- YapStone: Online Payment Processing – YapStone, Payment Service Provider
- Braintree: Powering More Than Just Payments
- Adyen: The only payment solution you’ll ever need
- Lending Club: Peer to Peer Lending & Alternative Investing
- Stripe: The new standard in online payments
Fintech Keynote Speech
Patrick’s keynote presentations are based on use cases and success stories, and there are more and more of those every day. Based on the timing of your event, Patrick can share the case histories that are most relevant. The underlying message is one of opportunity and technological innovation. Fintech will bring huge disruption to the financial sector, but there are always both winners and losers. How can we ensure that we’re among the winners? That is the driving motivation behind Patrick’s work. It is essential for banks and insurance companies to gain a strategic perspective of the developments and invest their resources strategically to capitalize on the impending disruptions. Book Patrick to deliver clarity and direction to your attendees.
The five (5) prevailing use cases for Fintech technologies include:
- Health Insurance
- Trading and Investing
- Loans and Credit
- Operational Efficiency
- Payment Processing
From an individual perspective, there are many new investment options that are emerging as a result of Fintech innovations. There’s a new AI-driven ETF (using IBM’s Watson platform) with the ticker symbol: AIEQ. It’s called a “dynamic” or an “active” ETF. There are also a number of ETFs that specifically follow Fintech startups. FINX is one example. Futures contracts are now available on Bitcoin and we can expect more investment options in the individual investment market in the years ahead. Patrick can review options to buy risk exposure within the Fintech sector if that information is relevant to your audience.
