The FinTech FinCrime Exchange (FFE) is celebrating an important milestone - we’ve reached over 300 member firms! 🥳 The FFE was originally set up by FINTRAIL as a small roundtable, and has grown from strength-to-strength to become the leading compliance network for FinTech professionals. We’ve taken part in public-private partnerships with Europol, the National Economic Crime Centre and others; produced our own podcast (then again, who hasn’t?!); chaired round tables and written industry guidance papers; and put on one of the industry’s most popular conferences: FFECON! And we couldn’t have done it without all our amazing members. 🥰
What is the FinTech FinCrime Exchange?
The FFE is a global network of FinTechs brought together by FINTRAIL collaborating on best practices in financial crime risk management. Member firms cover the whole FinTech ecosystem - payments and retail banking, investment, lending, cryptocurrency, and banking-as-a-service. We currently have members from 43 different jurisdictions around the world. 🌍
Origins of the FFE
FINTRAIL began the FFE as an ad-hoc roundtable with just six companies back in January 2017. FINTRAIL had noticed that several clients were experiencing the same financial crime typology, and wanted to create a way for them to share this information and ideas for effective counter-measures. The idea proved so popular that FINTRAIL then set up the FFE as a permanent community, with regular physical meet-ups in the UK, Singapore and the USA. These meet-ups naturally became virtual in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, allowing more firms from other parts of the world to participate. We now blend in-person meetings and social events with virtual meet-ups and webinars to make the best of both worlds for all our members.
Why the FFE is special
One of FINTRAIL’s key motivators for establishing the FFE was the obvious need for a dedicated compliance organisation for FinTechs. FinTechs comprise a key part of the financial ecosystem but are often excluded from forums reserved for established, larger financial institutions (such as JMLIT in the UK). In addition, they often cannot afford the costs of involvement with professional bodies. So the FFE was founded to offer a unique, totally free network for digital-native, innovative firms to collaborate and share their insights and knowledge to fight financial crime together. 💪
Don’t just take our word for it - hear what our members have to say!
What we have planned next
We may have hit 300, but have no intention of stopping here! We’re going to continue to grow the FFE membership, especially by expanding in particular subsectors and new geographies. We also want to spread awareness of the power of the FFE within current member firms, to make sure all teams - financial crime, fraud, KYC operations etc. - can make the most of their membership.
We are taking a pause on hosting FFECON this year, but have an exciting calendar of events lined up in its place. For instance, FINTRAL and the FFE are hosting a series of senior leaders round tables focusing on topics of keen interest to participants, such as consumer duty and APP fraud. We’ll also be putting on social events to bring the whole London-based community together. 🎉
How to get involved
If you hold a financial crime compliance role at a FinTech and you’d like to get involved, you can apply to become a member today. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn too to keep up-to-date with what’s going on. If you want to learn more about the community and our activities, check out the FFE’s website page or contact us at ffe_admin@fintrail.com.
You can also learn more about FINTRAIL and the people behind the initiative here.