Deloitte’s 6th Horizon conference shook the audience out of their daydream in the Salle de Musique de Chambre at the Philharmonie on 14 June. While several government officials highlighted Luxembourg’s proven ability to adapt to a changing environment, the international keynote speakers drew a picture of a future in which bankers may need to explain their raison d’être.

“The financial services industry is changing radically and the Luxembourg players are still not fully up to speed on innovation and digitization of their services. We hope that the conference will serve as a call for action in this respect,” explained Pascal Martino, Digital Leader at Deloitte Luxembourg.

The popular Horizon conference gathered 300 financial industry professionals Tuesday to discuss the changing environment and spark new ideas. Pierre Gramegna, Luxembourg Minister of Finance, gave the opening speech and showcased how Luxembourg has a good track record for innovation, resulting in its highly successful fund industry. The Minister of Finance also pointed to the recent positioning of Luxembourg as a hub for Renminbi businesses.  

Full orchestra
Then the music changed and the international keynote speakers Fredrik Harén and Nicolas Cary forced the audience to look at themselves and the financial industry from a different angle. Their message was clear–the change fatigue that starts to define the financial industry must be overcome if bankers would like to remain bankers. Mr Cary, co-founder of Blockchain, the world’s leading Bitcoin software company, gave the audience a taste of the radical changes that blockchain could potentially lead to. The brave new financial landscape would have very litle in common with the banking world of today.

“The world is full of knowledge and people with diplomas and degrees. What we need now, are people with imagination and a master plan. Innovation boils down to having a plan and finding the right team to turn it into reality,” commented Benjamin Collette, Deloitte Luxembourg’s Financial Services Leader and Innovation Leader, who gave the welcome speech at the conference.

The final encore
With its focus on innovation and change, the Horizon conference created a perfect frame for the launch of Deloitte Luxembourg’s brand new web-based platform DBoard. This digital ecosystem gives the users a detailed and real-time overview of the projects they have entrusted to Deloitte, as well as instant access to dashboards, reports, data and documents.

The Horizon conference was this year again sponsored by Luxoft. Hugues Delcourt, the CEO of Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, was the chairman of the conference and Nicolas Mackel, CEO of Luxembourg For Finance, and Claude Marx, Directeur Général, Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier were among the speakers.

For more information about the Horizon conference, please visit www.horizonconference.lu.