Bjorn Cumps, a professor at Vlerick Business School, opened this BRIEC event by outlining the complex landscape of the financial world and highlighting various innovation pathways. Mr Cumps also talked about how digitalisation is changing the customer experience and how this is leading to new structural models for banks and other financial actors. 

The first business case was presented by Geert Van Kerckhoven, CEO and co-founder of OPER, a company active in the financial sector. OPER has developed a digital platform designed to simplify the traditional and cumbersome mortgage application process. Mr Van Kerckhoven went over the many difficulties and challenges they initially faced and explained how they eventually overcame them through their tremendous solution-oriented mindset.   

Before the break we also heard from Simon Van Henis, Business Development Manager at Keypoint. Mr Van Henis explained how their digital collaboration platform brings together all stakeholders with decision-making powers, making portfolio management a lot faster and more efficient. The platform can be used in many sectors. 

Jean-Charles Velge, co-founder of QOVER, gave another inspiring presentation on how technology is changing the insurance industry and how QOVER is responding to these changes. In his presentation, Mr Velge emphasised that traditional insurance offerings are no longer suitable for new emerging business models spanning multiple countries and jurisdictions, which is why QOVER offers new solutions based on in-depth data analysis. 

The last presentation was given by Martin Callaert, co-founder of Paperbox, who talked about how Paperbox uses digital technologies including artificial intelligence. Insurance teams can leverage their platform to greatly simplify or even automate cumbersome and time-consuming processes.