The Korea Fintech Forum held the “International Conference on Fintech, Innovation and Sustainability” on Feb. 14-18 at San Jose State University, California.
Park So-yeong, chairperson of the Korea Fintech Forum, declared the establishment of the World Fintech Forum (WFF) and announced that the Korea Fintech Forum and the Seoul Metropolitan government will jointly hold the WFF this May.
Chairperson Park said: “I hope the World Fintech Forum will evolve into an international gathering that is as enduring as the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Mobile World Congress (MWC). The WFF will help build a healthy fintech ecosystem whereby fintech startups are given their fair share of business opportunities.”
The goal of the WFF is to facilitate Korean fintech startups’ entry into the global market. To that end, Chairperson Park conducted market research in the second half of last year and decided to hold the WFF this May.
The Korea Fintech Forum had registered “World Fintech Forum (WFF)” as a trademark at the end of 2015. Therefore, once South Korea successfully hosts the WFF this May, the competitiveness of the Korean financial industry will be made know to the rest of the world.
According to the secretariat of the Korea Fintech Forum, “Fintech Demo Day” events were held many times in 2015 to award promising Korean fintech firms prizes. But it turned out that as fintech firms took part in Demo Day events multiple times, previous award winners took home Demo Day awards again and again. In an effort to offer fintech startups equal opportunities, the Korea Fintech Forum decided to hold the WFF.
The upcoming WFF is expected to draw participation from the financial authorities of the UK, Luxemburg, Hong Kong, the US and Australia. Konkuk University, located in Seoul, will share the result of a study it is currently carrying out in collaboration with 10 global universities, including the University of Cambridge.
The Korea Fintech Forum plans to request the global fintech community and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to sponsor the WFF.
