After more than a decade of conferences and content, fintech has evolved past online lending alternatives: Fintech Nexus bridges the gap.
In 2022, the financial ecosystem encompasses more: digital and neo banking, AI underwriting, mobile lending, cyber security, retail investing, web3 payments, regulation, crypto investing staking, and beyond.
Following the earliest trickles of innovative startups, a roaring downpour of new ideas led to a tidal wave of change in the fin world. LendIt Fintech is now Fintech Nexus to connect traditional finance and the new roaring ’20s of financial tech.
Under the rebrand, Joy Schwartz, President of Fintech Nexus, said, “Our names finally encapsulate all that we do, and that Nexus means ‘coming together.'”
Fintech is what the industry uses to describe the field LendIt has covered and broadcasted for years.
From the Latin verb nectere, or “to bind,” Nexus is used here to connect, annex, and incorporate the new world with the old as a “center” for news, in-person content, networking, and education.
Traditional finance will become the same as fintech before long, and the Nexus ecosystem will be there as a bridge.
Peter Renton, Chairman, and Co-Founder of Fintech Nexus agreed.
“Fintech Nexus feels more in line with who we are today. While lending is still an important part of what we focus on, fintech is so much more than lending,” he said. “We operate at the center of all of fintech, at the nexus of fintech.”
Nexus is the center of focus and connects a group; he said, “When you bring these meanings together and apply it to fintech, you get Fintech Nexus.”
Long time coming
There have been many not-so-subtle hints that this was coming for those in the audience paying attention.
Bo Brusktern, Co-Founder and CEO at Fintech Nexus, said the rate of change is taking off.
“While banks and fintechs were struggling to save the economy through traditional ‘innovations’ during the pandemic, the new kid on the block — crypto — started to mature beyond the primitive developments we saw in the pre-2020 era,” Brustkern said. “Those innovations are now preparing to unleash massive opportunities and threats for the traditional financial ecosystem. So yeah, ‘innovation in financial services’ ain’t what it used to be.”
Fintech Nexus swiveled to digital in the past two years and grew its team, adding digital webinars and fireside chats during the pandemic shutdowns. Todd Anderson, Chief Content Officer, said he is looking forward to the competition in the new space: when the worlds collide, the end customer wins out.
“I think the biggest beneficiary of the worlds coming together is the end customer; we will end up with better, faster, cheaper, and more personalized products for consumers and small businesses alike,” he said. “Financial products have always been opaque and expensive; to win the customers, all the different players will have to do better on price, speed, and transparency.”
The team created Nexus Dealmakers, a deeply valued face-to-face networking series. Fintech Nexus added two industry-leading podcasts featuring top guests from the fintech space and periodic industry whitepapers with more to come.
Since August, Fintech Nexus rebuilt the news product from the ground up, doubling readership through an international team of journalists, and added a viral media product with a growing TikTok following to capture younger generations through collaborative finfluencer marketing.
Crypto and more
Just this month, Fintech Nexus launched the Cryptonexus workshop series, an educational introduction for financial professionals to the crypto space, with our Merge London Web3 conference on the horizon in October.
The rebrand is just in time for the long-awaited USA event next week in NYC. The team is crunching for the first significant event back in two years, and based on ticket sales, it is set to be Fintech Nexus’s biggest bash.
Brusktern said in terms of web3 and crypto, he is excited for everything to change.
“At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I’d say I’m most looking forward to the upending of everything,” he said. “More pragmatically, I’m eager to see accredited investor laws become irrelevant. But maybe that last one is a bit too aspirational.”
Rebrands don’t mean much to organization outsiders, but it’s Fintech Nexus’s first step toward years of an industry-leading ecosystem. Up next is the fun part.
See you at a Fintech Nexus event soon.
