Responsible Finance & Investment Summit 2017:

On May 3rd and 4th the Responsible Finance & Investment (RFI) Summit 2017 was held for the first time in Zurich, in which the Swiss Finance + Technology Association played a strategic role as a Fintech partner.

Co-organised by the RFI Foundation and the Swiss Arab Network, the RFI Summit 2017 was a great success, gathering over 150 high-profile professionals from Responsible Investment and Islamic finance from over 20 countries.

The summit emerged as the ideal opportunity for collaboration between the responsible investment industry, which manages $22 trillion in assets, and Islamic finance, which oversees more than $2 trillion.

Keynote speakers H.E. Governor Kairat Kelimbetov, Governor of the Astana International Financial Centre and H.E. Ambassador Marc Bichler, Ambassador-at-Large for Climate Change and Human Rights, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Luxembourg, addressed the major overlaps between sustainable finance, responsible investment and Islamic finance, stressing the importance of integrating environmental social and governance (ESG) factors.

Speakers, including Boris Battistini and Christian Dreyer (Board Members of the Swiss Finance + Technology Association), debated key trends shaping responsible investment and Fintech, which included Finclusion, regulatory matters and the incubation of responsible Fintech ventures.

The Summit saw a remarkable response from local and international Fintech players who perceived responsible and Islamic finance as the ideal fields for Fintech to disrupt, leveraging technological developments conventional finance has seen over the last few years.

A great illustration of the energy driving Fintech towards responsible finance is the quality of startup pitches the Support Disruption for Good has gathered. Out of three finalists, Tez Financial Services, a Pakistan-based Fintech startup, won the challenge and earned a golden ticket to compete in the final pitching round of the F10 Incubator.