In less than a month, on June 21st and 22nd, Madrid will become the worldwide epicenter of Fintech. World-leading CEOs and founders will mix with the most promising fintech startups redefining financial services from across the globe to take part in MoneyConf, an event organized by Web Summit with more than 1500 confirmed participants.

Last year’s event was held in Belfast, but issues with access to the Northern Ireland capital contributed to the relocation of the event to Madrid, in the recently inaugurated Nave Boettiche in the Villaverde district. Besides, Madrid is gaining visibility in the fintech world market, with homegrown companies such as Kantox, peerTransfer and Coinffeine. And whereas traditional banks have been slow to catch onto the fintech bandwagon, Spanish banks such as Banco Santander or BBVA have been some of the first to react. Paddy Cosgrave, CEO of Web Summit and MoneyConf said: “We are extremely excited to host MoneyConf in our new location Madrid. Madrid is an important financial hub in Europe and is becoming one of the forerunners in fintech.”

The event will focus on addressing the constant changes taking place in the financial sector through technology, and attendants will be able to listen to and participate in the latest debates on blockchains, cryptocurrencies, banking infrastructure, big data, crowdfunding platforms, capital markets, credit and lending, cybersecurity, IoT and wearables.

Some of the most relevant speakers of the event are Ann Cairns, President of International Markets for MasterCard; Taavet Hinrikus, Co-Founder and CEO of TransferWise; Alexander Graubner-Müller, Co-Founder and CEO of Kreditech; Al Goldstein, CEO and founder of Avant; Claire Calmejane, Director of Innovation of Lloyds Banking Group and Kathryn Petralia, Co -Founder and COO of Kabbage Inc. (my previous post covers the recent alliance between Santander UK and Kabbage to offer fast loans to SMEs)

And in case (like me) you are interested in Mobile Payments, don’t miss the following talks:

• Jacob de Geer, Founder and CEO of iZettle. Living up to its reputation as a mobile payment industry leader, iZettle is an easy way for entrepreneurs, sole traders and small businesses to accept card payments on their iOS or Android smartphone or tablet.

• Mark Mullen, CEO of Atom Bank. Atom bank is one of these actors, part of a faction of so-called Challenger banks that want to challenge the set order and the existing quasi-clique of financial, high street banking institutions. Officially launched in April 2016, it is the only app-based bank in the UK, and within one month 30,000 people have registered since it launch, according to reports.

•Valentin Stalf, CEO of Number 26. As you might have read in my previous post, the German startup has been trying to reinvent the average banking experience in Germany and Austria and recently expanded to six new European countries, including Spain. Atom Bank (UK) is probably their closest competitor on the market, but one of the main differences is that, Number26 has been created with a Europe-wide vision.

• Alick Varma, Founder of Osper, a mobile-first bank for 8 – 18 year olds in the UK. The banking service is made up of a prepaid debit card provided by MasterCard which links to iOS or Android app. On the app side, rather than simply providing a statement of incomings and outgoings for the user, it also provides a separate login for parents so they can keep an eye on things.

• Sean Neville, Co-Founder of Circle, the app I talked about in my previous post about Social Payment Apps. Circle is a peer-to-peer payments technology company using bitcoin and traditional flat currencies. With Circle Pay users can hold, send, and receive traditional flat currencies. The company received US$76 million in venture capital from 3 rounds of investments between 2013 and 2015, including US$50 million led by Goldman Sachs.

• Ismail Ahmed, Founder & CEO of WorldRemit. WorldRemit is an online money transfer service available on computer, smartphone and tablet, that provides international remittance services to expatriates and migrant workers. Ismail’s idea of an online money transfer service was partly influenced by his own frustrating experience of sending money to relatives in Somaliland using offline, agent-based services while studying for an MBA at London Business School.

Exciting, isn’t it? If you are going to be in Madrid on June 21st and 22nd and you want to join a group of leading executives and innovators in the financial services and banking sector don’t forget to fill out this form to apply to attend MoneyConf!