A guest speaker at ICT Spring 2016, Jérôme Wittamer, co-founder and Managing Partner of Expon Capital, shared with our team his views onFinTech, and especially on the current Luxembourg environment, allowing start-ups to develop new services and products in the Grand-Duchy.

How do you explain that fact that FinTech has become such a hot topic, especially in Luxembourg?

FinTech is certainly being hyped, quite a lot, worldwide. According to me, it has a lot to do with the fact that there has been a revolution in the cost of software development which went down dramatically over the last years with the advent of the mobile platform: the smartphone, since the invention of the iPhone in 2006, really triggered the big FinTech wave that we see today.

Luxembourg is the second largest fund centre in the world so we naturally have that attraction for any company that is working in the financial industry. The country is a natural hot spot for all of these industries and also for the start-ups that deal with FinTech.

 

Why is Luxembourg the perfect environment for start-ups and especially for the ones involved in FinTech?

Luxembourg would be the best place for some FinTech start-ups to start their business in if their business revolves around fund distribution, wealth management and insurance because we have Pan-European platforms. It is Luxembourg's key asset.

 

Can Luxembourg compete with London, Berlin, and even the Silicon Valley?

Luxembourg can definitely compete with Berlin, London or the Silicon Valley on specific types of markets, on specific sectors such as fund distribution, fund marketing, insurance, the marketing of insurance products in Europe. This would actually not be done by the Silicon Valley, would not be done by Berlin, and could be done by a place like London maybe… Luxembourg also has a very strong advantage having to do with the small size of the city and the fact that the relationships between the different people can be facilitated.