A unique collaboration between Huawei’s regional Ecosystem Development business and its R&D centre in Finland will lead to the launch of the Digital Finance and Security Innovation Lab (Fin²Sec) in September.
Designed to address the increasingly urgent requirement for banking, finance and payment services in Europe to become digital-first, Huawei is looking to collaborate with multiple industry stakeholders to accelerate progress and satisfy customer demands.
Establishing the Helsinki-based Lab as an incubator in which ideas and programs can be discussed and developed, Huawei is aiming to create a base for technology, shape improved industry standards and develop products and services which are fit for the needs of today. The Lab will also focus on facilitating and supporting the financial services sector through innovative technology solutions that improve customer experience and loyalty. The overarching objective will be to bring secure, digital financial services and improvements to payment processes to every person, home and organisation to encourage a healthy and accessible financial life.
In preparation for launching the Digital Finance and Security Innovation Lab, the Huawei team, as a donor of Helsinki-Aalto Institute for Cybersecurity, is working closely with Aalto University, and has also invited pan-European banks, FinTechs, and industry associations to get involved. Their expertise and future plans, as well as their input on the challenges they face, which are inhibiting progress, will be the focus of the Lab.
“Unless we work together to strengthen the financial ecosystem, we will continue to struggle to bring secure digital services and products to people in a way that they can easily access, in particular for those that are unfamiliar or feel uncomfortable with the digital transformation,” said Adam Rybusiewicz, Director of Financial Vertical Eco-Development and Partnerships for CEE, Nordics and Turkey at Huawei Consumer Business Group and one of the innovation ab architects. “The purpose of the Lab is to generate not just new concepts, but to share experiences and challenges, and foster successful initiatives or business models that can be emulated across the finance, banking and payments sector.”
Similar projects that Huawei has launched previously with security improvement in focus have led to significant innovation. An example of this is Huawei’s Digital Car Key feature, an NFC-based app which allows drivers to lock or unlock their car and start it using their smartphone¹.
"Huawei Finland R&D has been working on consumer device security for almost one decade, and the resulting hardware-assisted trusted environments today host or support critical security services like Huawei Pay, WeChat Pay, car keys and authentication solutions in Huawei mobile phones. We look forward to sharing our expertise and promote our device security capabilities to the Fin²Sec ecosystem together with our university partners," said Dr. Jan-Erik Ekberg, Head of Helsinki System Security Lab (HSSL) in Huawei, where he is responsible for Platform Security R&D, especially in consumer devices.
Opening Ceremony
The Lab will be opened at a ceremony in Helsinki, Finland on September 28th. Delegates will be invited to attend presentations during a morning session and will have the opportunity to visit the Innovation Lab later in the day.
During the all-day event, Huawei and participating stakeholders will outline some of the financial industry’s most pressing security and privacy challenges and share the latest industry trends in digital banking, payments and open banking. Banking and financial participants will also highlight areas of key consumer pain points that the Fin²Sec Lab will look to address through joint-collaboration with its participants.