European Digital Finance Association
The European Digital Finance Association, or EDFA, is an international non-profit association under Belgian law that brings together national and vertical fintech associations from across Europe and the EEA. Its 21 members include France FinTech, ItaliaFintech, Holland Fintech, Fintech Belgium, SweFinTech and the Spanish fintech and insurtech association AEFI.
EDFA speaks for these associations before the EU institutions and supervisory authorities and works to remove legal and practical barriers to fintech services in the single market. Experts from the member associations draft joint answers to EU consultations in working groups. Through its members, EDFA reaches more than 2,500 fintech companies, professionals and other stakeholders.
Members and membership
EDFA has 21 member associations, among them Holland Fintech, Fintech Norway, Fintech Poland, Rofintech from Romania and the Czech Fintech Association. Germany is represented by DIGITAL INVEST GERMANY, the federal association for crowdfunding, and by GAES, the association for electronic securities. Finance Innovation, the Türkiye Fintech Association and UAFIC work with EDFA as associated ecosystems without being members.
The articles of association allow only one category of members: associations or federations in financial technology and national or regional fintech hubs. Every member has one representative and one vote at the general meeting, and the board sets one annual fee that is the same for all members. The board aims to decide on a written application within 21 working days and gives reasons when it refuses an applicant.
Board of directors and secretary general
The board of directors is the strategic body of EDFA and meets every month, with Alessandra Guion-Gambrill as chair. The other board members are Ana-Maria Georgescu, Camilla Cionini Visani, Florence de Maupeou, Gabor Akos Dávidházy, Jiri Hauptmann, Niklas Sandqvist, Peter Strikwerda and Piotr Brewiński. Noam Perets is Secretary General and leads the executive team, which runs the daily operations of the association.
A supervisory board with one representative from each member association meets four times a year and elects the board of directors. Karsten Wenzlaff represents DIGITAL INVEST GERMANY in this body, Kristen Charvin represents France FinTech and Rodrigo García de la Cruz represents AEFI.
Working groups and Fintech Visits
The working groups of EDFA cover AI, blockchain, open finance and crowdfunding. Jeremy Sulzbacher of Fintech Belgium chairs the AI group, Aleš Krempa of the Czech Fintech Association chairs the blockchain group, and Henrik Nygård Sjølie and Vegard Bjerke Øye of Fintech Norway lead open finance together with Jeremy Sulzbacher. The groups prepare coordinated answers to EU consultations and follow the FIDA regulation on financial data access as well as the payments reform under PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation.
In the Fintech Visits program, EDFA brings companies from its member associations to DG FISMA, the financial services department of the European Commission. The first thematic session on 29 September 2026 dealt with AI in financial services, and five companies from Norway, Italy, Poland, Sweden and Spain showed how they apply the EU AI Act in practice.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Belgium
Crowdfunding and the ECSP-R working group
The ECSP-R working group of EDFA deals with the European Crowdfunding Service Providers Regulation, which gives crowdfunding platforms one license for the whole EU. Karsten Wenzlaff of DIGITAL INVEST GERMANY co-chairs the group, and Nederland Crowdfunding belongs to EDFA as a vertical association for the sector. In 2025 the group drafted a position paper with the vision of a crowdfunding industry worth ten trillion euros and a review of the rules in 14 countries.
DLT Pilot Regime and capital markets
On 7 September 2026, EDFA signed an industry recommendation on the volume limits of the DLT Pilot Regime, addressed to the Council and the ECON committee of the European Parliament. The current proposal raises the cap for market infrastructures on distributed ledgers from 6 billion to up to 100 billion euros. The signatories see this as a step forward that still falls short, because some European projects already hold volumes of 350 billion euros, and they ask to remove the cap or to set a higher one.
Founding and office in Brussels
EDFA was established in Brussels by a notarial deed of 11 February 2020 as an international non-profit association (AISBL) under Belgian law. In 2019, Fintech Belgium had joined forces with associations from eight other countries, and these nine founding countries were Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania and Spain.
The office of EDFA is at Koning Albert II-laan 4 in 1000 Brussels, and the association is listed in the EU Transparency Register under the number 870785291740-77.
European Digital Finance Association and Finance Loop
Fintech founders and bank teams in the Finance Loop network ask the same questions about the EU AI Act, open finance and the DLT Pilot Regime that the working groups of EDFA take to Brussels. Finance Loop discusses these rules in its Risk & Compliance track, at events in Frankfurt and other European cities.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.