Money20/20 2023 highlights: Touring sustainable finance

Introducing Oxygen: Enabling Sustainable Finance

This year, our team and effort have been largely focused on the launch of our latest product Oxygen, which addresses the urgent issue of carbon emissions by helping financial institutions account for the environmental impact of their digital asset activities.

This launch followed the receipt of our Innovate UK grant in 2022, which we had announced last year at Money20/20 2022 along side our white paper on Decarbonising Crypto: towards practical solutions.

Oxygen represents our initial step towards offering a comprehensive solution for companies looking to comply with forthcoming regulations by measuring and accounting for their supply chain’s carbon emissions. We have just announced Zumo’s next step on this journey with GMEX ZERO13.

Panels, Fireside Chats, and Collaborative Insights

Zumo’s team had the privilege of sharing our expertise and insights through various panels and engaging in fireside chats alongside industry leaders. In the fireside chat “Nurturing a More Climate-Conscious Crypto Sector,” Zumo’s Environmental Adviser, Kirsteen Harrison, joined forces with Cathy Mulligan from Imperial. They explored the intersection of sustainability and the digital industry, discussing emerging macro-level regulations. These include The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) which will require sustainability reporting along side financial reporting and it needs audited data, and The Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) which recommends information companies should disclose so investors, lenders, insurance underwriters, and other stakeholders can adequately access and price financial risks and financial impact related to climate change. With these coming into place, and a stronger focus on the need to measure and report on scope 3 emissions, blockchain and tokenisation has found a very strong use case.

Additionally, our CFO, Devina Paul, participated in a panel discussion titled “A World of Borderless Payments…What Does it Even Look Like?”. Devina, alongside Ani Sane from TerraPay and Wenhui Yang from Tenpay Global, discussed the implications and possibilities of borderless payments in an interconnected world. The conversation covered where we could expect likely adoption in digital assets payments cross-border over the coming years, and need for supporting infrastructure: business-to-business payments (lion’s share by value of the cross-border use case); consumer-to-business (cross-border e-commerce; international tourism); business-to-consumer (salary payments, remote work & digital nomad trends); consumer-to-consumer (international remittance).

Money20/20’s Sustainability highlights

This year, one of our highlights was seeing that Money20/20 2023 showcased a strong commitment to sustainability. The event launched the initiative “Europe’s Got Access“, a pitch battle exclusively for climate-fintech startups. We celebrated the victory of our partners, Zero Labs, in this competition, who demonstrated our collaboration and showcased Zumo’s case study.

From our perspective and conversations, it became clear that there is an increasing demand for climate crisis solutions, driven by a new generation of customers who value Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations. In an interview with the C-Suite Podcast, Emma Kisby, CEO, EMEA, Cogo, highlighted this trend, noting that 25% of consumers would consider leaving their banks if they fail to demonstrate commitment to ESG.

For a deeper understanding of sustainability and finance, I would highly recommend to keep up with Hannah Duncan’s blogs that are always well researched, and provide authentic and insightful insights.

Appreciation and Gratitude

The success and excellence of Money20/20 are attributed to the remarkable individuals who contribute to the event, and we were grateful to meet so many of you and only wished we have had more time to meet those we couldn’t. If you want to meet don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team, we’re always delighted to work out ways we can collaborate, simply get in touch here.

We would like to extend sincere gratitude to the entire Money20/20 team, including Elena Simonini, Almudena Solera, Tracey Davies (Byers), Ian Horne, Gina Clarke, and Tina Loncaric, for their invaluable support and assistance throughout the event.

We also thank the UK delegation team, particularly Suki Jagdeo, Anna Röder-Wozniak, Mickael Paris, Benedetta Schiavi, and Louis Williams, for fostering a positive atmosphere and uniting the UK fintech community.

Money20/20 2023 was a significant milestone for Zumo as we showcased Oxygen, our innovative product dedicated to assisting financial institutions in decarbonising their digital asset activities. Through participation in panels and fireside chats, we emphasised the importance of nurturing a climate-conscious digital asset sector and explored the potential of borderless payments.

For us, a highlight of Money20/20 2023 was its commitment to sustainability, exemplified by the “Europe’s Got Access” competition, underscored the growing demand for climate-fintech solutions.

So that wraps up our Money20/20 2023 highlights, for now. We will soon be posting interviews, videos, podcasts, and more pictures from the event, so don’t forget to check back in.

Speak soon!