The SK Annual Conference, which took place in a hybrid format for the first time, provided an overview of the developments that have happened in SK and in eID over the last year, analysed the opportunities and options for connecting people and computers, and covered the subjects of the digital Euro and new attack vectors.

During the opening speech of the annual international conference, SK’s board members Kalev Pihl and Liisa Lukin gave the audience an overview of SK’s developments over the last 12 months. Over the course of that time, SK’s team as well as the number of SK’s clients, users, and transactions have all grown.

“Ten new talented people joined our international team this year and today, we have 70 people in three countries working towards our goal of ensuring that companies and their clients are able to enjoy the digital age in a effortless manner. Our growth goes hand in hand with new users joining our services – today, four million people across 21 countries are using our services. In other words, each of our employees helps 57 000 people conduct their digital business worry-free,” said Liisa Lukin, member of the board at SK ID Solutions.

As this year marks SK’s 20-year anniversary, then we looked back at the last two decades and interviewed SK’s previous CEOs, Kalle Tarien and Ain Järv. You can watch the interviews along with Pihl and Lukin’s speech here.

Vilnius University’s neuroscientist Dr Urtė Neniškytė gave an exciting overview of the achievements made in science and the technologies that are being used to make humans more efficient – from glasses and hearing aids to prostheses and brain implants.

The second keynote speaker, the Bank of Latvia’s board member Zita Zariņa talked about the fast-changing banking sector and the need to regulate it in the European Union, the developments made in fintech, and the digital Euro. According to Zariņa, the goal of regulating the finance sector is to ensure that the system remains stable and that new and systematic risks are avoided, to increase the growth and efficiency of fintech, and to protect consumers. Despite the fact that from a regulatory point of view, the environment has changed, financial services have yet to undergo a similar development – money, though virtual, still exists; even payments are still the same, although faster and integrated into various processes; loans and funding still follow the same fundamental premise, even if they are based on cryptocurrency; there is still a need for infrastructure, and trading with different assets and commodities mostly works in a similar manner, even though it is now supported by artificial intelligence. You can learn more about the developments made in fintech from the Bank of Latvia’s point of view here.

Andrew Roberts from TalTech talked about new phishing attacks, how and why people fall victim to them, and how organisations are fighting against them. In his talk, Roberts also analysed the attacks made against Estonian citizens and warned everyone that phishing is a constant threat, not just a seasonal one.

The next SK Annual Conference will take place on November 3rd, 2022.

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