NFU and UNI Europa Finance holds 2nd digital workshop on fintech
On 15 September, the second digital workshop of the EU funded research project on fintech’s impact on the finance sector took place. The project, which is run by NFU, UNI Europa Finance and Gothenburg University, brings together researchers from Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands and Estonia. It aims to shed light on the impact that fintech companies have had on the financial sector over recent years and what impact this is having on labour relations in the sector.
During the workshop, the Irish MEP Chris MacManus from the GUE/NGL group spoke about the work currently going on in the European Parliament focusing on the digital finance sector as well as gave some reflections on the importance of having workers voices represented in the ongoing discussions about how to regulate the sector with regards to fintech. This was followed by presentations by the Dutch research Alex Lehr (Nijmegen University), and Danish researchers Anna Ilsøe and Trine Pernille Larsen (Copenhagen University), presenting the findings that they had collected for the Netherlands and Denmark respectively. This included summaries of the outcome of interviews they had conducted with actors in the sector as well as a detailing of the new collective agreement structure in place in the Danish fintech sector. The final speaker of the day was Pierre-Charles Pradier (Sorbonne University), who spoke about the problems of regulating fintech companies, given their fast pace of development and occasional practice of seeking out grey zones in financial regulation to make a profit not reachable for more heavily regulated actors.
The presentations led to an animated debate and showed many of the similarities and differences between fintech scenes in the different countries involved. These are topics which the final project report will dig much deeper into and which will also be explored further in the final conference, to take place in February 2022 in Copenhagen.
Morten Clausen, Policy Officer NFU
