Grow VC Group keynote about FinTech and blockchain ecosystems at VanFUNDING 2017. The presentation focuses especially to explain needs and opportunities to develop a well working distributed finance ecosystem, not only individual services.

1. Grow VC Group ++
www.growvc.com ++
@growvc ++
Enabling Digital Finance ++
Copyrights © Grow VC Group 20171
FinTech and Distributed Ecosystems: Opportunities to Make It Work
VanFUNDING 2017, Vancouver, November 28, 2017
Jouko Ahvenainen

2. You can take photos, share
them and write down
notes, but
this presentation will also
be available on Slideshare
(growvc) and the Grow VC
Group’s Blog at
growvc.com/blog

3. FinTech, Data &
Finance Services
Digital
Infrastructure
Exits
Grow VC Group – company examples
Worldwide pioneer and leading holding company
in enabling technology and data in FinTech
Hong Kong - London - New York - San Francisco

4. Grow VC Group
Global leader in enabling technology and data for FinTech
■ Started its operations in 2009 as the pioneer to start digital finance service
■ Grow VC Group was the first in the world to launch an online startup equity investing service
■ The group includes over 10 businesses
■ Grow VC Group companies have more than 100 customers with millions of end users globally having launched
new digital finance services
■ The main hubs are in London, New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong
■ Several of its companies are leaders in their own areas, e.g. Crowd Valley, Prifina, RE Bearing, and Startup
Commons
People
■ Grow VC Group’s management and founders have been listed as top influencers in the world in digital finance,
Fintech, crowdfunding and digital business
■ Our key people are serial entrepreneurs who have experience to launch several new companies and products
around the world to consumer and business market
■ Our people have been in executive roles to launch international corporates’ products to new markets and build data
analytical approach for go-to-market and sale

5. Grow VC Group Works with Industry Leaders
5

6. Path to distributed data oriented empowering finance
1. Development from big black boxes (like banks or their IT) to
distributed services and solutions
■ More targeted services, including finance services integrated to other
services like lending to e-commerce
■ Distributed ledger, open APIs, back office as a service, and new data
models
2. Data must be an enabler, not only an optimizer
■ End-users must get immediate, tangible value from data, not only so
that companies use them to optimize their own businesses
■ For example, it is not only that a bank optimizes interest rates based
on customer risk, but the customer should get the optimal solution for
their finance needs
3. Distributed power
■ Banks and finance institutions used to dominate the finance business,
but new solutions distribute the power to many service providers and
customers, as we have seen in media and retail digital disruption
■ It is about business models and culture, but also about IT. New
technology enables new models, mainframes are dead

7. Rule #1
Bank’s operations, legacy IT
systems and business models are
most probably obsolete, but
traditional finance industry money,
assets and instruments still have
value

8. Look at Crowd and P2P Finance History
• It started with startup equity crowdfunding
■ “the most difficult asset class”
• Today lending, real estate and later phase companies are more important markets
■ Broader understanding about these models and more stable ways to value
• A lot of cooperation with regulators
■ Constructive cooperation and regulatory sandboxes in many countries
• Institutional investors and money play an important role
■ 70 to 80 percent of p2p lending money from institutional sources
• Syndication, securitization and underwriting are important in any finance market
■ Requires common tools and methods to value assets and securities

9. Rule #2
It is easy to print money, but
the real test is, whether you can
pay for something with it

10. Too Many Small Islands With Their Own Rules
1. Mainly independent cryptocurrencies, ICOs and technical solutions
■ Companies and projects issue their own tokens often based on unclear underlining assets and services
■ Even if technically possible to exchange to other digital assets, exchange rates and values hard to evaluate
2. Not linked to fundamental regulatory requirements, e.g. KYC and AML
■ It is hard to believe regulators would allow anonymous users and transactions
3. So far no models to link to the bigger financial ecosystem to underwrite, syndicate and trade
■ Each service targets to have its own assets and investors, when different cooperation models in the traditional
finance sector are the key to success
4. No common models to get and use data to value, monitor and rate assets
■ A slide show or white paper is not enough to analyze any asset and especially follow, how its value develops
5. No independent 3rd parties to analyze, rate and value assets
■ Common models, practices and independent evaluations are an important part of the system to value assets
and keep the market stable; now ICOs or crypto funds can even manipulate the market

11. Blockchain Is Not Final
• Capacity, efficiency and latency issues
■ Room to improve and innovate
■ Other solutions: Hashgraph, Hyperledger, …
• Common concepts for distributed ledgers but many implementations
■ User experience is still poor in many services, users are confused with many functions, and how e.g.
transfer tokens
• Need to have compatibility of different data models, tokens and transactions
■ Real finance market need compatible data, metrics and language
■ Different systems must work smoothly together

12. Rule #3
Technology enables disruption,
but
new business models implement it

13. This Means Opportunities
1. Real time data, data analytics and AI can be used to evaluate and value digital securities
and underlining assets
■ Data is becoming really powerful in finance, fintech and distributed models, but of course a slide show or
a fancy data are not enough to value an asset
2. ICOs, digital securities and smart contracts for many others and easier asset classes help
bring more investors and money
■ For example loans, real estate and later phase company equity
■ Practically, all assets in the world can go to digital securities and smart contracts
3. Needed components, like KYC, data and syndication, can be based on new distributed
technology solutions
■ These needs don’t necessary mean to use old centralized ecosystem solutions
4. It is important to have clear roles and responsibilities in the ecosystem
■ It is always complex if a party issues a security based on its own asset on its own market place based on
its own valuation model

14. Rule #4
1849 gold rush made only few gold
miners rich, but
it was mainly shovel sellers and
service providers that made a
fortune

15. CASE 1: Crowd Valley back office for services and data

16. Data based services on Crowd Valley back office

17. CASE 2: Prifina – consumers manage their own data

18. Prifina – empower users with personal finance data

19. Read more at columns and blogs

20. Jouko Ahvenainen – jouko@growvc.com
+44 7889 833 165 (UK), +1 646 363 6664 (US)
Twitter: @jahven, LinkedIn: joukoahvenainen
Grow VC Group - growvc.com
ENABLING
DIGITAL
FINANCE
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