Andreia Stanciu, ACCA: “It’s only our imagination stopping us from delivering more innovation”

“During the pandemic what we have done is launch two international surveys in which we had responses of 15,000 professionals around the world, who were the first responders in finance. What we learned from this pandemic is coming from those two surveys,” Andreia Stanciu, Head of ACCA South-Eastern Europe said during the Digital Transformation Conference – Fintech & Banking.

“We were very surprised in ACCA when reading those answers. Not even half of the companies that these finance professionals represented in the survey had prepared financial scenarios or rebound scenarios after such a crisis. That was the result of the first survey in April.

We were happy to see that in June, during our second wave of questions to our members, already 82 percent of companies had performed financial forecast and scenarios. For all companies, it was important to take this risk planning very seriously. Those companies who actually prepared those scenarios were better prepared for this crisis. 71 percent of respondents said that the main change will be the workplace transformation. Staff safety, staff comfort was top among company priorities.

In terms of dialog and the relationship with the regulator it’s always best to start from the principles. Regulators and fintechs both want the same things. Regulators want the safety of the public and fintechs want the safety of their customers.

Regulation is not easy, because the rise of digital has made the pace of innovation accelerate. The traditional regulatory process is not made to be speedy and agile.

Most of the innovations have been discussed upon. Banking with fintech is becoming more customer focused. There is really nothing that can stop the industry from offering real time personalized services.

It’s only our imagination stopping us from delivering more innovation. We have to keep in mind the main focus which is public satisfaction but also public safety, protecting people data.”

The event benefitted from the support of DIAMOND PARTNER Wipro Limited, GOLD PARTNERS ACCA, Inform Lykos, OTP Bank, STRATEGIC PARTNERS ARB (Romanian Association of Banks), CIO Council, ARIR (Romanian Investor Relations Association),  PARTNERS Arval, Sea One, Wave, WITH THE SUPPORT of ANIS, Cluj IT, FabLab Iasi, and MEDIA PARTNERS Outsourcing Today, Financial Intelligence, Economistul, Romania Durabila, Club Economic and Pin Magazine.