So looking at the agenda's today there are some themes emerging from this conference – so first up is the ongoing challenge of disruption and just making things work better; and, the imaginary heat map of words from the conference has the word PLATFORM at the heart; and, at the heart of the platform experience is OPEN BANKING – not necessarily because it offers yet another way to pay but because it points the way to an integrated payment and account experience for the customer that can be leveraged through the cloud, offering banks and disruptors alike the ability to set up and scale solution quickly and effectively.

And another small surprise is that block chain is still here. Ripple have just moved in next door to us and are quietly going about their business of demonstrating that the technology behind block chain if implemented correctly has been solving some of the cross-border, fx and remittance issues that continue to plague the global banking markets; block chain continues to offer an ability to verify and reconcile settlement relatively quickly, accurately, efficiently and above all safely that means that block chain may finally shake off the current stigma of crypto and come of age.

Three years ago the issues around identification and compliance were key concepts and in an unsurprising repeat….they still are.  Any journey from a payment or client perspective starts with on-boarding and on-boarding requires bullet proof KYC and AML checking.  Doing this at the speed of FinTech remains an ongoing challenge and as regulators increase the pace of regulatory change the need for good robust technology solutions remains key.

So, there is a maturity to 20/20 this year as vague ideas that were yesterday's accelerator graduates become today's enterprise level, saleable solutions.

And without wishing to be too hopeful as these businesses become more mature and responsible…they are stopping by to chat to someone who is going to ensure that their businesses and ideas not only "enable innovation" but comply with regulation wherever they are making things better for consumer and businesses.