The business programme of the Forum of Innovative Financial Technologies FINOPOLIS 2019 in Sochi has come to a close.

The Forum, dedicated to the implementation of innovative technologies in the financial sector, was attended by over 1,700 participants and media representatives from Russia and 37 foreign countries and territories, including: Austria, Belgium, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Israel, China, Japan, Singapore, and the United States. This was the first year that FINOPOLIS was attended by representatives of Indonesia, Poland, and Estonia.

FINOPOLIS 2019 was attended by Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina, People's Bank of China Vice Governor Fan Yifei, Director and President of the Quality, Business Process, and IT Management Department of Huawei Jingwen Tao, Senior Vice President and Member of Globalization Steering Committee and General Counsel of Ant Financial Services Group Leiming Chen, and National Bank of Kazakhstan Governor Erbolat Dossaev.

Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina noted: “Financial technologies are changing the world, they offer huge benefits for consumers and businesses, making financial services and products convenient and fast. Yet, of course, there are risks involved, including those for the regulator. We all need to change in order to meet these challenges. Five years ago, we promised a paradigm of soft regulation, we promised not to stifle developing technologies in a tight regulatory embrace. I think that now is the time to talk about industry regulations and develop a roadmap for our work going forward.”

The Forum featured 3 plenary discussions, which focused on FinTech industry regulation, the personalization of financial services, and FinTech development prospects until 2035. Over the course of 17 panel sessions and 9 thematic roundtables, participants discussed the competitiveness of banking and FinTech, innovation in the payments sector, cybersecurity, digital law, RegTech and SupTech, quantum cryptography, the opportunities afforded to small and medium-sized enterprises through FinTech, and other industry issues.

The programme included a dialogue between the CEO of the Paris Fintech Forum Laurent Nizri and the Governor of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina and a presentation by Chris Skinner, one of the UK's most influential tech experts.

FINOPOLIS 2019 was the first year that the Forum hosted the Open stage, a space where representatives of leading banks, FinTech companies, and the expert and scientific communities gave lectures and presentations on financial tech topics. The Open stage featured 14 open lectures, pitches by Skolkovo Foundation startups, and the presentation of FinCERT’s annual report.

The FINOdays youth programme, held from 7–11 October, was attended by 82 people. The main event of the youth programme was the Hackathon, during which 17 student teams competed in solving business cases from financial market leaders. The jury awarded First Place to two teams: Techtación, which proposed improving the biometric identification system to protect it against fraud by using facial recognition and a unique gesture, and PPnP, which solved the case on banking gamification using transaction data. Second Place was awarded to Hardway, who created a retail discount recommendation system for banking clients.

The Forum’s sporting programme included a beach volleyball tournament where Fintech industry representatives played alongside Russian beach volleyball stars Evgeniya Ukolova and Ekaterina Birlova. Over 100 people took part in the traditional FinTech Run, a 5 km race along the embankment of Sochi's Olympic Park. 

FINOPOLIS 2019 featured 71 partners. 

The Forum's General Partners were Rostelecom, Alfa-Bank, Visa, Huawei, Mastercard, and Mir Payment System. 

Forum Premium Partners: QIWI, FinTech Association, and ProSoft. 

The Official Partners of FINOPOLIS 2019 were Tinkoff Bank, Moscow Exchange, Sberbank, VTB, PSB, Rosbank Societe Generale Group, Russian Agricultural Bank, ROSINKAS, and Waves. 

FINOPOLIS 2019 will be capped off with an ice hockey match between the FINOPOLIS and Mir teams, organized by Mir Payment System.