Paddy Cosgrave with Enda Kenny in 2014 Source: PA WIRE

THE WEB SUMMIT has announced that MoneyConf, a financial services and fintech conference, will be held in Dublin.

This year’s conference is kicking off in Madrid, Spain today.

The Web Summit moved to Lisbon in 2016 after being held in the Irish capital for a number of years.

When the move to Portugal was announced in 2015, email correspondence between government officials and organisers of the tech conference revealed how the relationship deteriorated as the event’s founder raised concerns about traffic management, public transport, hotel costs and WiFi at the RDS.

This morning, Web Summit co-founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave announced that MoneyConf would be held in Dublin.

In a statement, organisers said: “We’re providing €1.5 million a year in free tickets to students from every school and college in Ireland to all our events globally.

Brexit is transforming Dublin as a financial centre. Major banks, credit card companies and fintech startups have all signed leases in recent months. JP Morgan is moving up to 1,000 bankers alone to Dublin from London. It’s an incredible moment.

“And it’s in this moment that we’re moving MoneyConf, which is already one of the world’s leading financial services and fintech conferences, to our hometown Dublin.”

The statement added that the timing of return “has nothing to do with Enda Kenny’s departure [as Taoiseach]“.

A public press conference about the move will be held in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin at 8am on Thursday, 22 June.

Read: After a stumbling start, Web Summit looks at home in Portugal

Read: Revealed: The emails that show why the Web Summit left Dublin