Emrah is among the leading early-stage investors covering European FinTech innovation areas and investment trends at the 11th FinTech Forum, 21st Nov. 2019 in Frankfurt: https://ftf11.eventbrite.com
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, both at work and leisure.
- Originally Swiss, banking background, spent the last 2.5 yrs in Berlin doing early-stage investments at Axel Springer
- Passionate basketball player and biker
2. What are your focus areas, overall and within the FinTech space?
Fintech (broad), Proptech, Insurtech, Legaltech
3. Could you share a couple of your startup investments or partnerships?
Our recent investment activities haven’t been announced yet, thus we can’t share anything yet.
4. Which areas of FinTech innovation do you find overhyped and which ones are worth watching out for?
Challenger/neo banks are ready to capitalize on modern UX. However, when you dig deeper, UX is brilliant, but the services are quite limited; compare Gmail and traditional. However, we believe there is a segment of people who still prefer having a physical bank. This might mean that traditional banks aren’t positioned that bad after all, i.e. to defend etc or retain market share, especially given their low capital costs. E.g there are unserved segments, like SMEs. So we might see more movements happening there.
5. Which way do you see the (European) financial sector going and who would be the likely winners?
The term financial sector is quite broad. However, EU banks may be in a search phase of their own identity. E.g. we don’t have big US players such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs. They’re good in terms of innovation. European/UK fintechs are very innovative though, and offer the potential to guide this search of the traditional banks, so why don’t they partner up?
6. What tip would you like to give FinTech entrepreneurs?
Be obsessed with the customers.
7. What’s on your bookshelf/holiday reading list?
Prisoners of Geography