As a key note speaker in the morning session, Flemming Stender, Director of Baltic Development Forum (BDF), highlighted the need for more regional cooperation among the Nordic and Baltic countries in order to develop world-leading cross-border digital solutions in finance and turn them into growth enablers for the region. He underlined the huge economic potential for implementation of the digital single market as described in a previous BDF report “Priorities towards a digital single market in the Baltic Sea Region” but also stressed that the region has to keep up the pace to maintain its current position as a global ICT hub. He pointed to the need to address some of the most important barriers for digital growth, e.g. the lack of e-skills and presented some of the main features of an up-coming discussion paper from Top of Digital Europe “Coding the Future” on e-skills in the Nordic-Baltic ICT hub. He also pointed to other barriers like access to finance for SMEs and flagged the potential for the Baltic Sea as a world leading hub for testing of digital products and services.
As BDF and Top of Digital Europe offers a platform for regional cooperation, Flemming Stender invited companies in the financial sector to dialogue and cooperation on how to strengthen the digital economy in the financial sector in the Baltic Sea Region.
The Finance IT Day Baltic took place in Riga on March 26, 2015. The conference was organized by Copenhagen Fintech Innovation and Research (CFIR) and CAC Academy.