The forum is over, but the emotions and impressions remain!
On September 10-11th, 2024, all eyes of fintech professionals were on the new PLUS-Forum "Payment Services and Money Circulation", held in Moscow.

PLUS-Forum is the largest platform for interaction in the payment and financial services industry. The list of participants was impressive as always: the program included dozens of speakers and experts. #begintimesteam also visited the event.

TatsianaRavinskaya, CEO of BeginTimes, shares her insights:

• the main drivers of development are financial technologies around large corporations, marketplaces and a great future for digital financial assets (DFA). 

• technological sovereignty should not consist in a complete rejection of everything foreign. We should not set a goal to reject foreign developments and innovations, including solutions from friendly countries. Technological sovereignty in ATM software is possible now... but there are some nuances. The first fully Russian ATM will be released by the end of 2026. 

• most of the equipment models presented at the exhibition are chinese ATMs and terminal equipment for payment cards acquiring. Perhaps the most striking and memorable stands were those of Hyosung TNS and BFS 

• a number of speakers noted the growth of trade turnover, including barter deals and a decrease in transactional costs with China. 

• digital inequality can be solved with the help of innovations and cloud solutions available to banks. 

• as part of the panel discussion, when discussing the crypto industry and digital assets, the delegates noted the high level of the legislative framework of the Republic of Belarus for regulating cryptocurrencies and mining. 

• the key trend of recent years is customer loyalty. Banks and companies have finally learned how to calculate the economic efficiency of their programs. Not every cashback or bonus brings real value, and it is time for the emphasis is on personalized accruals. Unit economics and digital analytics allow tracking customer returns and managing this process more effectively. 

• the most outstanding case in terms of import substitution was presented by the russian bank VTB. At the moment, the bank has transferred 85% of its internal systems to russian software. I was especially impressed by the IT platform Sfera and solutions for small and medium businesses. 

• I was pleasantly surprised by the wide range of wearable payment gadgets at the ALIOT stand.

In general, a pleasant atmosphere, meeting with colleagues and friends, the opportunity to communicate with the representatives of various forms and levels of business - from start-ups to large international companies - inspire for new achievements in the development of financial technologies. As always, huge thanks to the organizers for the warm welcome. We are already looking forward to see you at the new Forum in October 2024 in Tajikistan!