ABBL’s special speed meeting event dedicated to banking CEOs & Fintechs
The ABBL begins the New Year with making one of its 2023 resolution a reality – Creating a context for accelerating digitalisation.
On 11 January, the ABBL organised a speed meeting event bringing together chief executive officers of banks and founders of financial technology (FinTech) firms. The event hosted by Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL) and conducted in presence of H.E. Yuriko Backes, Luxembourg's Minister of Finance, and Guy Hoffmann, ABBL Chairman, created a unique atmosphere for 70 senior bankers and FinTech professionals enabling them to meet each other in person, interact, and explore new opportunities.
The ABBL is thankful to the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology for the cooperation on this initiative of ABBL’s FinTech and Innovation Forum.
A special thanks goes to all banks’ CEOs and FinTech founders for joining this event and making it a success. We hope that opportunities for cooperation explored during speed-meetings will pave the way for promising digitalisation projects shaping the future of the Luxembourg's financial industry!
THIRD INTERVIEWS - This week, we would like to share the views from:
- Frank Rückbrodt, CEO, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A.
- Thomas Rappold, Co-Founder & CEO, Divizend Luxembourg S.à r.l.
Stay tuned for other reactions next week!
Testimonial from a Bank CEO: Frank Rückbrodt, CEO, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A.

* What did you think about this ABBL initiative?
It was a fantastic opportunity to meet and connect with so many different and promising FinTech companies.
* What opportunities or connections did you make at the event that you are excited about?
Banks and FinTechs are partners with different backgrounds and experiences – it is an opportunity for us to collaborate and mutually benefit from each other - driving jointly the technological transformation and increasing the attractiveness of the Financial Marketplace in Luxembourg.
* What's next, how do you plan to follow up on these contacts and opportunities?
We will be assessing the most promising propositions with our subject matter experts in the Business, IT or Compliance to identify potential areas of collaboration.
Testimonial from a FinTech Founder: Thomas Rappold, Co-Founder & CEO, Divizend Luxembourg S.à r.l.

* How do you view the ABBL initiative to connect financial market players with Fintechs?
With the new format CEOs - FinTechs Speed Meeting, ABBL has exactly met the needs of Luxembourg as a financial center. For FinTechs like us as Divizend, it is crucial to speak to decision makers from the leading banks and asset managers in a short time. Our expectations were more than exceeded at the first event. The feedback from the CEOs on our digital withholding tax refund platform was extremely positive.
* Anything surprised you or got particularly your interest during the evening?
We were surprised by the barrier-free and direct communication possibility with leading CEOs of the industry. We were able to discuss very practical solutions tailored to the respective bank or asset manager within a few minutes and define concrete follow-up activities
* What's next, how do you plan to follow up on these contacts and opportunities?
To put it in a nutshell: The event is a great accelerator for our business in Luxembourg in 2023. As a startup, you have to work very quickly and efficiently and manage limited resources. The speed dating event has defined a new benchmark in terms of communication efficiency with the financial industry in Luxembourg. In addition, it was also very clever on the part of ABBL to schedule the event directly at the beginning of January in order to achieve maximum attention for all participants. We were able to agree on very concrete next steps with the respective CEOs from all the discussions held and we are quite sure that this will result in countable business for us as a dividend in 2023.