
LendIt Fintech USA 2018
The World’s Leading Event in Financial Services Innovation
Fintech | Digital Banking | Blockchain | Lending
LendIt Fintech is the World’s Leading Event in Financial Services Innovation. LendIt Fintech hosts three conferences per year in the USA, Europe, and China. These events bring together every major fintech, blockchain, lending and digital banking companies from around the world. Professionals in the financials services industry come to learn, network and do business.
Online Lending, Event Management, Financial Technology, Networking, Peer to Peer Lending, Market Place Lending, Blockchain, Digital Banking, Banking, Fintech, and Financial Services
Meet Chris Larson of Ripple and The Lendit Team
A serial entrepreneur, Larsen, 57, cofounded the online mortgage lender e-Loan, in 1997, and, eight years later, Prosper, the peer-to-peer lender that has been valued at more than $1 billion. He seems to have hit it bigger here, even if XRP is nothing more than a speculation vehicle — and one that’s down 65% since the beginning of the year. While Larsen stepped down from the company more than a year ago, he still serves as executive chairman and tells Forbes he’s “100% focused on Ripple and helping the team any way I can.” Given these kind of numbers, he’d be crazy not to.
LendIt has always been about community. It all began back in 2012 when Jason Jones was speaking at a conference in New York that was organized by Dara Albright. He proposed creating a new event focused on marketplace lending (then called peer to peer lending), a place where the new community could come together. He had been interested in marketplace lending for some time and, along with his partner Bo Brustkern, was in the process of launching one of the first funds in the space.
At that same time Peter Renton, the founder of Lend Academy, had decided that he wanted to start a marketplace lending conference in 2013. The members of the Lend Academy community had been reaching out to Peter on the need for an industry event that would bring the community together in person.
So, it was serendipitous when Jason and Dara connected with Peter and together they decided to launch the world’s first marketplace lending conference. They had modest expectations, they just wanted to put on an event where the entire community could come together to network and learn. The first conference in New York ended up being sold out and was a big success.
Today, Jason, Bo and Peter run the LendIt conferences and Dara has moved on to launch a new venture. LendIt has grown into the largest lending and fintech conference in each of the regions they operate: USA, China and Europe.


Our conferences bring together the fintech firms, investors, and service providers
Lending
Lending has been the bread and butter of LendIt events from inception. As online lending has grown up, so too has LendIt. In the early days there were just a handful of early companies who were thinking very differently about how lending should be done. There is now a healthy ecosystem that has been built around the lending industry. At LendIt Fintech USA 2018 we’ll cover all verticals of lending. Many people are familiar with LendingClub CEO Scott Sanborn who will kick off the event. While we will cover every aspect of lending, here are a few other notable speakers:
- Jay Farner, CEO, Quicken Loans
- Max Levchin, Co-Founder & CEO, Affirm
- Anthony Noto, CEO, SoFi
- Renaud Laplanche, CEO, Upgrade
Digital Banking
Every bank needs to have a digital strategy these days. Consumers have more options than ever and companies need to check all of boxes no matter what size bank they are. We’ll hear a wide range of perspectives from startups to established banks looking to serve a younger customer base. This track will also cover mobile technology, banking infrastructure, data science, partnerships, wealth management and how banks can compete in the ever changing marketplace. Below are just a few names that we’ll hear from on digital banking:
- Yolande Piazza, CEO, Citi FinTech
- Suresh Ramamurthi, Chairman & CTO, CBW Bank
- Luvleen Sidhu President, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, BankMobile
- Jeremy K. Balkin, Head of Innovation, HSBC Bank USA
- Nicolas Kopp, U.S. CEO, N26 Inc.
Blockchain for Financial Services
For 2018 we looked at one of the biggest new trends in financial services, blockchain and decided to create an event within our event. We are debuting our new blockchain event Blockfin by LendIt. Blockfin is co-located within the LendIt Fintech event meaning attendees have access to both events. We teamed up and are co-hosting the event with CryptoOracle. BlockFin brings together the top innovators and experts from the entire blockchain ecosystem including technology platforms, crypto companies, investors and banks for 2 1/2 action-packed days of learning, networking and business development. The event will include: 1:1 investor meetings, a demo stage for crypto funds & ICOs and 40+ hours of cutting edge blockchain and cryptocurrency content. Some names we are excited to hear from include:
- Tim Draper Founder & Managing Director DFJ
- Richard Craib, CEO, Numerai
- Tom Ding, Co-founder & CEO, String Labs/Dfinity
- Vincent Wang, Chief Innovation Officer, China Wanxiang Group
- Kathleen Breitman, Co-Founder, Tezos
- Catherine Wood, CEO/CIO, ARK INVEST
Specialties In Financial Technology
This is just a taste of what you can expect out of LendIt Fintech USA 2018. You can learn more by visiting our speakers page or looking at sessions confirmed on our agenda. If you plan to attend the event, be sure to act soon as the price increases by $400 on Friday night. As a Lend Academy reader you can use our special discount code “LENDACADEMYVIP” for an additional discount.