The five indispensable competitions that you have to participate in if your are a startup fintech
Financial technology is quickly becoming the mainstay of the entire digital transformation sector and the process is being headed by disruptive startups. If you are one of them, it will interest you to learn about some of the competitions that can help you enter the market.
Innotribe Startup Challenge Competition
After five editions, this competition aims to bring together innovators, global investors and strategists from the world's leading financial institutions.
Managers from capital risk companies and the leading financial institutions, as well as a group of business angels will evaluate the projects presented and select a group of 60 semifinalists, who will enter the program that is inaugurated each year.
The aim is to reduce the gap between the most brilliant entrepreneurs and the financial services industry. To do so, the former, that is the semifinalists, will present their projects, of which five will be selected in each region (London, Singapore, Cape Town and New York).
You can sign up in the New York edition up to June 18 and participate in the grand finale that will be held in Singapore this coming October 14.
Fintech Fusion
And this Swiss competition is somewhat better localized. The purpose: “To fuse the best of Switzerland with the most promising fintech talent and become the leader in financial services innovation”.
If you want to create "transforming" companies in areas like cybersecurity, data privacy, blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, P2P platforms or mobile payments… you have until June 15 to sign up with a beta version of your app.
This competition is focused on “collaboration”. The corporate members of this incubator act as mentors and come from all areas of financial services; banking, asset management, staple food commodity marketing and the academic sphere.
The startups that enter this “select” group will have the chance to receive advice from various experts in each area, whether to set up a company or start to access a customer network that will help them take off.
With this initiative, the capital risk firm Polytech Ventures wants to increase Switzerland's reputation as a financial center. Nonetheless, they expect to receive requests to create companies from all over the world to enter the Swiss market.
BBVA Open Talent
One of the competitions with the most experience, based on seven previous editions. In 2015, the challenge is to achieve a “stable long-term relationship”, that is, to establish even closer links with startup finalists and for the competition to take one more step forward.
The registration deadline is July 13 for the three regions: Europe, Latin America and USA and the rest of the world. In each of these, the evaluation committee will select the 20 finalists who will compete for the winner's award, two per region.
This year the award is an intensive immersion and interaction program to be held in Mexico City and London. One week in each city, two of the most important population centers of the moment, due to its emerging nature in the case of Mexico City and its long experience in the financial sector in the case of London.
In addition, to encourage the long term nature of the relationship, the winners will be able to start a project with BBVA by building a demo on a financial product or service that enhances the digital transformation of the sector.
The Open Bank Project
Write these dates down in your calendar: June 12 to 14. San Francisco, París, Brussels, Rome and Istanbul will be the venues for the hackathons organized by BNP Paribas through The Open Bank Project.
The aim of these competitions is to find new companies with talent and to make sure they have what they need to offer their services to BNP Paribas customers.
These hackathons are the first stage of an empowering program for technological entrepreneurs who want to innovate in customer experience in banking, insurance and personal finance.
At the end of the competition, 10 winning teams pass to the next stage where they can access a personal support program through the summer. These two summer months will lead to the day when they can present their demo.
This is one of the formulas prepared by this firm to help financial technology startups develop new products based on their API.
Fintech Innovation Lab
New York, London and Asia. These are the three venues where Accenture has opened this laboratory to search for the best innovators in financial technology.
The award is a 12-week program to provide assistance in the initial growing stage with the aim of accelerating product development and presenting them to senior managers in the financial sector. Six companies are selected each year from each region.
Digital coins, Big Data, new methods of payment, risk management services, etc. are some of the areas this competition, which closed its edition in Asia in May, is geared towards.