The

FinTech50
2016
The fifty hottest FinTechs in Europe
 1

The Hot Ten

The FinTech50 Brolly
Clearmatics

2016
Lattice
Mondo
Moo.la
OptioPay
Ormsby Street
Savedo
Setl
Squawker
AimBrain Knip
Algomi LendInvest The FinTech20
Hong Kong
Barzahlen Mambu 8 Securites
BehavioSec MarketInvoice Aidyia
AMP Credit Technologies
Behavox Meniga APrivacy
AsiaPay
Bima Monetas Cashyou
Currenxie
Bitnet Number26 Demystdata
Ibox
Blockchain Onfido InvestLab
Ironfly
Bought By Many Personetics Lenddo
Monexo
Callsign Pockit MoneyHero
Neat
Cognia Prodigy Finance PassKit
Prive
Contego Property Partner Quantifeed
WeLend
Credit Benchmark QuanTemplate Xnotes

Digital Shadows Raisin The FinTech20

Elliptic RateSetter India
Bank Bazaar
Ethereum Ravelin BetterPlace Safety Solutions
CitrusPay
Everledger Revolut Coverfox
Ezetap
Fenergo Spotcap Ftcash
FundsIndia
Fidor Bank Suade Get Fiscal
IndiaLends
Five Degrees Sybenetix Juspay
Ketto
FundApps SynerScope Milaap
Paynear
InvoiceSharing Tradle Paytm
Razorpay
Iwoca Traxpay RedCarpet
Scripbox
Kantox WeaveWorks TradersCockpit
Unocoin
Kaymera Yoyo Wishberry
2 3

Meet our 2016

selection panels
The 44 industry experts we invited to select
this year’s FinTech50, FinTech20 Hong Kong
and FinTech20 India

Mariano Belinky
Santander
InnoVentures

Abdul Guefor
Intel Capital
Oliver Bussmann Patrick Mang
UBS HSBC
Albert Cheng
Eight Roads
Ventures
Chris Wilson Jan Hammer
RBS Index Ventures Nadeem Syed
Eileen Burbidge Travers Clarke- Misys
Passion Capital Santiago Tenorio Walker Michael Leung
American Express Fiserv Adrian Seto China CITIC Bank
Chris Skinner Accenture International
The Financial
Services Club

Eddie Harding Connie Leung

Menno Van ICON Corporate Microsoft
Leeuwen Dave Birch Finance Michael Treskow Christian Erlandson Navin Honagudi
ABN AMRO Consult Hyperion Rob Moffat Accel Partners Dun & Bradstreet Priscilla Law Kae Capital
Balderton Capital InvestHK
Alex McCracken Melissa Guzy
Silicon Valley Bank Arbor Ventures

Alex Batlin Herman Lam

Fearghus Barkley UBS Mark Whitcroft Cyberport
Nasir Zubairi FinTech50 Research Illuminate Financial Ivan Yip Shaloo Kulkarni
Influencer Conny Dorrestijn Pierre Suhrcke Nadia Crandall Chipper Boulas UKTi HK Syntheo
Shiraz Partners Acorus Capital Harvard Business Firestartr
School Alumni
Angels London

Nicky Cotter
Sven Julie Lake The FinTech50 &
Don Ginsel Laurent Nizri Korschinowski The FinTech50 & ICON Corporate Roy Vella Claudia Bate James Savage Phil Zamani Anju Patwardhan Himanshu Vyas
Holland FinTech Alteir Consulting KPMG FinTechCity Finance V2 Ltd Bell Pottinger Hendale Capital Influencer Standard Chartered CISeed
 5

Introducing Our Partners

The future is wide
open – let’s build
The FinTech50
it together! 2016
Julie Lake and Nicky Cotter
Founders, The FinTech50
This year’s FinTech50 can take a moment to feel very
pleased with themselves.
Microsoft offers you the With 1200+ innovators on our long-list, up from 800+
technology, support and last year, this was the most hotly contested FinTech50
in its four-year history.
services to help your startup To clarify, we don’t rely on ‘entries’ to create it.
succeed. The FinTech50 is our tribute to the best in the sector,
not the best at entering awards, so we undertake
research throughout the year to make sure that it Country partners
is truly representative of European innovation. We
also invite some of the biggest names in FinTech to
If you are working on your own software product or service select their final 50. And we can vouch for the fact
and your company has been registered less than 5 years that they approached this very tall order with the
meticulousness you would expect of the leaders in the
ago, you may be eligible to join Microsoft’s BizSpark field. This is very much their FinTech50.
program and get access to: And it looks rather different to 2015.
• Free software for 3 years, including Windows, Visual
Thirty FinTechs are new to this year’s list. It features
Studio, Office and many more. more companies in sectors such as security, compliance
• Free Azure cloud services to build your business by and risk. And one or two names might not be familiar.
But whatever their vintage, provenance or specialist
utilising the power of machine learning, data stream niche, this year’s 50 have one thing in common:
analytics and blockchain. customers and a growing number of them. Not only
have they all built and shipped an innovative product
• Free training and support from Microsoft. or service; people and businesses are actually using
their products and services.

We also introduced two new features this year: The FinTech50

VIP reception hosts
Ready to start? The FinTech50 Hall of Fame (18)
The FinTech20s Hong Kong (34) and India (36)
Find out more at microsoft.com/startups or say hi at
startout@microsoft.com We hope you enjoy reading this Yearbook as much
as we enjoyed creating it. Thank yous must go to our
partners and sponsors, who are the rocket fuel behind
the FinTech50; to our panels around the world for
their time and priceless insights, and to our endlessly
enterprising FinTech community around the world.
You all know who you are.
Microsoft BizSpark fintechcity.com @TheFinTech50

“Has the bubble burst in FinTech?
I don’t think so because the
fundamentals remain the same.
Insight +Idea +Action = Innovation
and FinTechs bring these to banks at
a speed they still struggle to keep up
with. So collaboration rather than
unbundling will be the order of the
day, deflation of the bubble or not.”
Richard Peers, Director Financial
Services Industry, Microsoft
The FinTech50:
innovation
AimBrain
Key people
CEO & Founder: Andrius Sutas
Co-Founder: Alesis Novik
FOunded
2014
Sectors
Security
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@AimBrainHQ
on The web
aimbrain.com
Killing Passwords
AimBrain’s vision of the future is
that any device you interact with
will know that it’s actually you,
without the need to remember
passwords. Founded in Edinburgh
by a team of ex-Toshiba, Google,
ARM, European Space Agency
and CERN engineers, its software
tracks and learns how a person
interacts with mobile devices, from
typing speed to how hard they
press or where they swipe. This
lets banks and payment processors
know if their users really are who
they say they are.
7
Algomi
Key people
CEO & Founder: Stu Taylor
Co-Founders: Rob Howes,
Usman Khan, Michael Schmidt
FOunded
2012
Sectors
Trading
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@Algomi_Ltd
on The web
algomi.com
The Bond Information Network
Algomi’s Honeycomb system helps
banks create a virtual balance
sheet based on actual bond data
– including trade information,
enquiries, and holdings – and lets
buy-side firms see this validated
virtual balance sheet at the banks.
This information and distribution
insight is not available anywhere
else. In just 12 months, Algomi
signed 150 buy-side firms and 15
banks in APAC, US and EMEA to
Honeycomb. Former Thomson
Reuters CEO Tom Glocer joined as a
strategic adviser in March 2016.
Commentators say: A much-needed,
startlingly simple yet practical
answer to one of the corporate
bond trading market’s most acute
needs: liquidity transparency.
8 9
Barzahlen
Key people
Co-Founders: Achim Bönsch,
Sebastian Seifert, Florian Swoboda
FOunded
2011
Sectors
Payments
HeadQuarters
Berlin, Germany
on twitter
@Barzahlen
on The web
barzahlen.de
Reinventing cash
Barzahlen makes online
shopping, playing or travel
booking possible for cash users.
Germany’s largest private cash-
payment infrastructure, with
over 9000 stores, has a vision to
replace the classic bank branch
and has partnered with German,
Number26 to provide customers
with a retail-based branch
network. Barzahlen is expanding to
other industries and sectors and is
now actively involved in insurance
and telecommunication. By the end
of 2015, Barzahlen expanded their
retail partner network by adding
about 3000 REWE stores.
BehavioSec
Key people
CEO: Neil Costigan
Co-Founders: Olov Renberg,
Peder Nordström
FOunded
2007
Sectors
Security
HeadQuarters
Lulea, Sweden
on twitter
@BehavioSec
on The web
behaviosec.com
The Token you can’t forget
BehavioSec’s algorithm verifies
who someone is based on how
they naturally interact with
their device and delivers instant
identity verification, along with
continuous authentication.
Panel says: Whilst it seems everyone
else in biometrics is promoting
face, voice, palm, finger and retina
recognition, BehavioSec is set to
revolutionise the sector by accessing
device usage and aggregating a
user’s ordinary behaviour into a
unique authentication, allowing for
an authentication process that is not
only super slick but totally invisible
to the end user.
Behavox
Key people
CEO & Founder: Erkin Adylov
Co-Founders: Slav Slavinski,
Roman Zelov, Alex Glasman,
Kiryl Trembovolski
2014
FOunded
Sectors
Security
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@behavox
on The web
behavox.com
Monitoring Rogue Traders
Behavox has good reason to look
forward to 2016. The two-year-
old business, whose behavioural
analysis monitors changes to
the way a trader communicates,
signed the most technologically
committed hedge fund in the
market as a client in 2015 and is
being courted by investment
banks and VCs alike. Currently
funded by friends and family, the
London business also expanded its
team from 9 to 14 and is planning
new offices in Singapore and New
York in 2016.
Bima
Key people
CEO & Founder: Gustaf Agartson
2010
FOunded
Sectors
Insurance
HeadQuarters
Stockholm, Sweden
on twitter
@Bimamobile
on The web
bimamobile.com
Microfinance Pioneer
Customers of Bima typically live
on less than $10 a day and fewer
than half have bank accounts. The
Swedish Microfinance pioneer has
developed a bespoke portfolio of
over 40 microinsurance & mobile
health products which it distributes
in emerging markets such as Ghana
for as little as 35 cents a month
using mobile technology and an
agent network. Its expansion across
emerging markets in Africa, Asia
and Latin America has served over
20 million customers in just five
years and it currently attracts 500k
new customers per month.
Bitnet
Key people
CEO & Founder: John McDonnell
Co-Founders: Stephen McNamara,
Akif Khan
FOunded
2014
Sectors
Payments – Blockchain
HeadQuarters
Belfast, UK
on twitter
@BitnetTech
on The web
bitnet.io
Bitcoin for enterprise
Bitnet is the first Bitcoin payment
processor designed for both
merchants and PSPs. Founded in
Belfast by a highly experienced
team, and with offices in the US,
Bitnet has already partnered
with several payment processors
and large e-commerce websites,
including Zooz, Limonetik, and
Japanese e-commerce giant
Rakuten. In 2015 it forged its largest
partnership yet with PAY.ON,
enabling Bitcoin acceptance for over
a hundred PSPs globally.
Partners say: Merchants benefit
from a digital payment method that
expands their business to a new
customer base, generating a new
revenue stream without significant
implementation costs.
Blockchain
Key people
CEO & Founder: Nicolas Cary
Co-Founders: Ben Reeves,
Peter Smith
FOunded
2011
Sectors
Payments – Blockchain
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on The web
blockchain.com
Be Your Own Bank
Founded in 2011, ‘the world’s most
popular Bitcoin wallet’ now has 6
million users, $30.5m funding from
investors such as Lightspeed and the
title ‘London Scale-up of the Year’.
In 2015 the first Bitcoin company
to hit 5 million users, doubled the
number of transactions processing
through its wallets and APIs,
opened new offices in London, New
York & Luxembourg and was named
one of ‘the Best Companies in the
World to Work for’.
10 11

Contego
Key people
CEO & Founder: Adrian Black
FOunded
2011

Sectors
Compliance, Risk & Regulation
Credit

HeadQuarters
Abingdon, UK
Benchmark
Cognia
on twitter
@Contego
Key people
CEO & Founder: Donal Smith
Key people on The web Co-Founder: Mark Faulkner

Bought By

CEO: Stewart Holness
Founder: Curtis Nash
contego.com  
2012
FOunded

Many Callsign 2005

FOunded Real Time Fraud Solutions
Contego founder Adrian Black
Sectors
Compliance, Risk & Regulation
Sectors
worked with the police, AutoTrader,
HeadQuarters
Key people
Compliance, Risk & Regulation eBay and others to create VSTAG,
CEO & Founder: Steven Mendel London, UK
Key people an industry forum to combat fraud
Co-Founder: Guy Farley CEO & Founder: Zia Hayat HeadQuarters
in automotive advertising. Whilst on twitter
London, UK @CreditBenchMark
FOunded FOunded chairing VSTAG, Adrian gained
2012 2011 on twitter an understanding of sharing data on The web
@CogniaDotCom and intelligence to verify entities creditbenchmark.org
Sectors Sectors
Insurance Security on The web and highlight fraud risks; this led
cognia.com   to a pilot project and was the seed Collective Intelligence for
HeadQuarters HeadQuarters
that developed into a first iteration Global Finance
London, UK London, UK
Protecting payment card data of Contego. With partnerships Credit Benchmark brings sought-
on twitter on twitter Cognia’s secure cloud-compliance including IBM, Amazon Web after credibility to a credit risk
@boughtbymany @Callsign solutions help enterprise customers Services, C6 Group, Contego has market renowned for opacity. By
on The web on The web in verticals such as finance, invested heavily in recent months aggregating and anonymising
boughtbymany.com callsign.com   energy, healthcare and retail to to strengthen its international data credit risk estimates of the world’s
capture, record, control, analyse sets. It was accepted into Accenture’s largest banks, the company creates
Insurance made social Multimodal Biometrics communications and protect 2016 Innovation Lab cohort and consensus credit data and analysis
Bought By Many uses the power Having someone’s mobile, getting payment-card data. Backed by announced two major initiatives: that directly reflects the views of
of the collective – ‘crowdbuying’ hold of their pin and biometric investors that include Vodafone and integrating Bureau van Dijk (BvD) banks’ own risk teams. This unlocks
– to negotiate better deals from fingerprint is still not enough to Swisscom, it was the first company international company data; and the insight of organisations with
insurance companies for large impersonate someone, says Callsign. to develop enterprise-grade mobile expanding its Creditsafe offering to assets in the trillions and with tens
groups of customers with niche The platform’s military-grade recording solutions and achieve cover 20+ markets. of thousands of credit analysts.
needs. As well as collecting a security, with over 50 analytics PCI DSS Level 1 accreditation Founded in 2014, the London based
slew of innovation awards, the captured and processed in real- globally on the Amazon Web Clients say: Fast enough to business raised $20m Series B
social insurance solution now has time, delivers a powerful cyber Services cloud platform. meet customer demands and financing in 2015 and launched its
over 143,000 members over 277 intelligence capability that provides secure enough to meet all operation in the US.
groups, and saves members an a clear view of which user, at which Clients say: Its PCI compliance compliance requirements.
average of 18.6%. location and on what device, is payment processing and mobile Investor says: Disrupting decades-
performing a given transaction. in-network recording solutions are old ways of risk assessment, and the
among the best in the market. potential impact on the financial
services sector is huge.

“Digital disruption should not
be seen as a threat, but rather a
healthy challenge, driving change
and opening up exciting new
possibilities. Far from resisting it,
banks should be embracing this
opportunity to reach outside their
own walls, to work with startups,
join innovation platforms and
collaborate on new ideas in ways
that would of been unfathomable a
decade ago.”
Oliver Bussman, Group Chief
Information Officer, UBS
The FinTech50:
collaboration
Digital
Shadows
Key people
CEO & Founder: Alastair Paterson
Co-Founder: James Chapell
FOunded
2011
Sectors
Security
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@digitalshadows
on The web
digitalshadows.com
Cyber Situational Awareness
Digital Shadows has come a long
way since the Accenture Innovation
Lab London in 2011, announcing
a $14m Series B funding round
in February. Its flagship product,
SearchLight, is a continuous
real-time scan of more than 100
million data sources online and
on the deep and dark web – cross
referencing customer specific data
with the monitored sources to flag
up instances where data might have
inadvertently been posted online,
for instance, or where a data breach
or other unwanted disclosure
might be occurring. The service
also monitors any threat-related
chatter about the company, such as
potential hackers discussing specific
attack vectors.
13
Elliptic
Key people
CEO & Founder: James Smith
Co-Founder: Tom Robinson
FOunded
2013
Sectors
Payments – Blockchain
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@elliptic
on The web
elliptic.co
Bitcoin Custody
Elliptic Vault is the world’s first
insured Bitcoin custody service and
the first Bitcoin company to receive
a global standard for financial
reporting. Its proprietary identity
database delivers auditable proof
of identity for over 10,000,000
addresses. Clients have used the
platform to assess risk on more
than $1bn in transactions, generate
suspicious activity reports, and
prevent fraudulent transactions.
Media says: A huge benefit to Bitcoin-
related businesses attempting to
decrease risk factors.
14
Ethereum
Key people
Co-Founders: Vitalik Buterin,
Gavin Wood
FOunded
2014
Sectors
Payments – Blockchain
HeadQuarters
Switzerland
on twitter
@ethereumproject
on The web
ethereum.org
Unstoppable Applications
Ethereum’s decentralised
blockchain and digital currency
Ether are becoming widely used
tools for building decentralised
apps. In January, R3 announced the
completion of a distributed ledger
experiment involving eleven of the
world’s biggest banks, connected on
an R3-managed private peer-to-peer
distributed ledger underpinned by
Ethereum technology.
Media says: The founders have built
and shipped something genuinely
new, extraordinarily ambitious,
and intellectually fascinating.
That’s much more than most
startups can say.
Everledger
Key people
CEO & Founder: Leanne Kemp
FOunded
2015
Sectors
Blockchain
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@everledgerio
on The web
everledger.io
Bling on the blockchain
Everledger uses the technology
behind bitcoin – the blockchain -
to tackle the diamond industry’s
expensive fraud and theft problem.
A graduate of Barclays’ TechStars’
2015 London cohort, Everledger
has partnered with different
institutions across the diamond
pipeline, including insurers, law
enforcement and the 10 diamond
certification houses across the
world. In February 2016, it
announced a strategic partnership
with Britannia Mining to reduce
risk and add greater transparency
in diamond procurement.
Fenergo
Key people
CEO & Founder: Marc Murphy
FOunded
2009
Sectors
Big Data
HeadQuarters
Dublin, Ireland
on twitter
@Fenergo
on The web
fenergo.com
Improving onboarding efficiencies
Dublin-based Fenergo helps
institutions manage the end-to-
end regulatory onboarding and
entity data management processes.
In 2015, it received the biggest
ever investment in an Irish Tech
($75m) and announced plans to
float on Nasdaq by 2018. This
year, the five-year old business
announced a 3-way alliance with
Markit and kyc.com to deliver a
highly optimised client lifecycle
management process that will
help financial institutions to
significantly improve regulatory
and onboarding efficiencies and
reduce operational costs. It also
opened a Singapore Office and
signed Nikko Securities as a client.
Fidor Bank
Key people
CEO & Founder: Matthias Kroner
FOunded
2009
Sectors
Banking
HeadQuarters
Munich, Germany
on twitter
@FidorUK
on The web
fidorbank.uk
Banking with Friends
With a name derived from the
Latin word for trust, Fidor has been
reimagining banking since 2009.
In Germany, the online bank has
around 100,000 clients and more
than 300,000 community members
who actively participate in the
bank’s decision-making processes
– a strategy that underpins Fidor’s
innovative platform. In September
2015, Celent’s “Model Bank of the
Year” launched in the UK. It also
announced a current account that
is free to open and run and made a
contactless debit card available for
the first time in 2016.
Five Degrees
Key people
CEO & Founder: Martijn Hohmann
Co-Founder: Bjorn Holmthorsson
FOunded
2009
Sectors
Banking
HeadQuarters
Breukelen, The Netherlands
on twitter
@fivedegrees
on The web
fivedegrees.nl  
Mid is the new Core
Matrix, Five Degrees’ next
generation banking platform,
continues to be a game-changer for
banks looking to update their IT
infrastructures. The Netherlands-
based business provides core-
banking solutions that are lower
cost, faster and which deliver
more transparency and insight. In
2015, Five Degrees won four major
new clients, including its largest
account to date, expanding from
its native Netherlands into German
and UK markets.
15
FundApps
Key people
CEO & Founder: Andrew White
FOunded
2010
Sectors
Compliance, Risk & Regulation
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@FundApps
on The web
fundapps.co
Cloud-based regulatory compliance
FundApps’ cloud-based regulatory
compliance monitoring watches
$1tn in assets each day. It also
provides a true service rather than
just software. An experienced
regulatory team stays up to date
with all the relevant worldwide
regulation coding it into software
so clients don’t have to worry
about it. And cloud-based services
means clients have zero IT spend.
FundApps won Europe’s largest
listed fund manager as a client last
year, as well as one of Canada’s
largest pension funds.
16 17

iwoca
Key people
CEO & Founder: Chris Rieche
Co-Founder: James Dear
FOunded Knip
2011
Sectors
Kantox
Key people
CEO & Founder: Dennis Just
Lending B2B
Key people Co-Founder: Christina Kehl
HeadQuarters CEO & Founder: Philippe Gelis FOunded
London, UK Co-Founders: Antonio Rami, 2013
on twitter John Carbajal
Sectors
@iwoca FOunded Insurance
on The web
iwoca.co.uk
2011
Sectors
Kaymera
HeadQuarters
Zurich, Switzerland
FX
Instant Working Capital Key people on twitter

Working capital was in shorter

HeadQuarters CEO & Founder: Avi Rosen @Knip
London, UK
supply when iwoca launched in FOunded on The web
2012. The lender has now issued on twitter 2013 knip.ch
over £70m to 4000+ businesses @Kantox
Sectors
across the UK, Poland, Spain and on The web Security Mobile Insurance
Germany with issuance to new kantox.com  Knip’s mobile insurance manager
HeadQuarters
customers increasing by 360%. bundles customers’ insurance
Tel Aviv, Israel
Annual revenue now tops £5m and Tomorrow’s FX today products into one app which had
the London-based company raised Having taken three and a half on twitter
seen 330k downloads in Germany

InvoiceSharing $20m equity in a Series B round in

July 2015, with a stated ambition to
years to hit $1bn in transactions,
the London-based FX management
@kaymera
on The web
and Switzerland by Oct 2015.
Customers get an overview of their
lend to at least a million businesses solution hit its next billion dollars kaymera.com insurances, see how much they
Key people
across Europe within a decade. Last in just eight months. With more have to pay for each one, when they
CEO & Founder: Jeroen Volk year, the firm opened its credit- than 1,700 corporate clients, 70+ Smartphone security have to pay and for how long their
Co-Founder: Vincent Prooij   as-a-service to Alibaba to offer employees and growth of over Founded by veterans in the cyber insurance contract is valid. The
FOunded trade finance to small businesses 200% in 2015, Kantox was also industry, Kaymera delivers a highly Swiss start-up also secured $15.7m
2013 importing from China and iwoca the first financial institution to sophisticated defence system to Series B, the largest FinTech
Sectors says its goal of lending to at least a integrate free and automatic SWIFT protect organisations, governments investment in Switzerland to
Office Ops million businesses across Europe messaging into its service, allowing and individuals from all mobile date. Knip builds its own backend
within a decade defines complete traceability of funds security threats, while supporting and data science to automatically
HeadQuarters
its ambition. transferred. It also secured $11m freedom of use on popular provide advice on better, cheaper
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
investment in Series B funding. smartphone models. and missing insurance coverage
on twitter
Customers say: 9.6/10 rating over and by being a full stack broker
@InvoiceSharing 596 Trust Pilot reviews. Clients say: Love the simplicity of In February 2016, it announced a that owns the entire insurance
on The web the platform, their transparent fees $10m funding round as it continues broker process.
invoicesharing.com and their efficient team. to secure business from tier-one
banks, and includes governments,
Accounting Robot global law firms and family offices
InvoiceSharing provides SMEs among its fast-growing client base.
with a low-cost invoice accounting
platform that doubles as a
platform for invoice financing.
The Rotterdam-based business’s
Accounting Robot won the “most
innovative solution for accountants
2016” at the Getwalk event in
The Netherlands.
Introducing:
The FinTech50
Hall of Fame
Ten FinTechs have featured on our radar since
the days when they could reasonably be called
startups. Some have made the list three years in
a row; all are still innovating. In recognition
of their pioneering spirit and competitive staying
power, we felt they deserved their own special
place within a list of remarkable game-changers.
Here, then, are our founding ten members of
The FinTech50 Hall of Fame.
We look forward to introducing more
in future years.
Adyen
The quiet achiever
Founded in 2006, Adyen now has a
presence on six continents, over 300
employees and provides advanced
payment solutions to more than
4,500 customers including Facebook,
Airbnb and Netflix.
adyen.com
CurrencyCloud
For powering
global payments
Founded in 2012, CurrencyCloud
processes in excess of $10bn in
payments every year, across more
than 40 currencies in 212 countries.
It now works with over 125 platform
customers and reaches more than
150,000 end-customers.
currencycloud.com
eToro
For socialising trading
eToro created the first global market
place for people to trade currencies,
commodities, indices and CFD stocks
online and today has over 4.5 million
users in more than 170 countries.
In February, eToro signed a joint
venture agreement with SBerbank to
provide its social trading services to
Russian investors.
etoro.com
Funding Circle
For funding SMEs
(to the tune of $1.5bn)
FundingCircle has lent more than
$1.5bn to 15,000 businesses in the
UK, USA, Germany, Spain and the
Netherlands. Since 2010 it has raised
$273m of equity capital from some of
the most sophisticated investors
in the world.
fundingcircle.com
iZettle
For imagining a
wallet-free world
Following a €60m funding last
year, Swedish mPos vendor iZettle
announced its move into small
business financing by providing
SMEs with an advance based on
future card sales.
izettle.com
Klarna
For simplifying
buying and selling
Klarna (which translates as clear)
was founded in Stockholm in
2005 with the idea of simplifying
buying. Today, it has more than
1,400 employees and is active on
18 markets, serving 45 million
consumers and working with 65,000
merchants. It expects revenues to
rise by about 40% this year as it
moves into the U.S. market.
klarna.com
Nutmeg WorldRemit
For taking
investments online For reinventing
remittances
Nutmeg launched the UK’s first
online discretionary wealth manager Worldwide, WorldRemit customers
in 2011. In 2016 it expects to launch send 400,000 transfers every month,
an automated advice service, and with around 25% being moved to
announced in March that The mobile money wallets. WorldRemit
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has raised nearly $200m in funding
had granted it permission to carry and in February announced that it
out regulated advice. has launched in California.
nutmeg.com worldremit.com
TransferWise Zopa
For services to For starting the
the Revolution ball rolling in 2004
One of the original FinTech Giles Andrews launched Zopa in
revolutionaries, TransferWise 2004 with the idea of creating the
continues to innovate, opening ‘e-bay for money’. To date, the P2P
up services to China this year pioneer’s total lending exceeds
and forging a partnership with £1.3bn, with £530m lent last year
Germany’s Number26. alone, double the total of 2014.
transferwise.com zopa.com

“Creating better banking and
payment experiences for consumers
and businesses is an irreversible
trend. We see an abundance
of great entrepreneurial talent
working to transform financial
services through digital products
and experiences, building on near
ubiquitous access to smartphones
and cloud infrastructure. This will
dramatically improve the industry
and undoubtedly create new giants
along the way.”
Davor Hebel, Managing Partner,
Eight Roads Ventures
The FinTech50:
transformation
LendInvest
Key people
CEO & Founder: Christian Faes
Co-Founder: Ian Thomas
FOunded
2013
Sectors
Lending B2C – Property
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@LendInvest
on The web
lendinvest.com
Mortgage Crowdfunding Marketplace
LendInvest turned a profit (£3.1m)
for the second time in just two
years of trading. The UK P2P
short-term mortgage lender has
lent over $738m since summer
2013 and expects to top $1.4bn in
lending during 2016. Significant
achievements in 2015 include
securing the UK’s largest ever
FinTech Series A investment
($30.9m) and receiving the
European P2P industry’s first credit
rating. LendInvest also maintained
its average annual return of c.7%
per annum and grew capital inflow
across all investor groups (both
institutional and retail) from
quarter to quarter.
Media says: Marks a dramatic shift
in the sorts of funding undertaken
through peer-to-peer websites.
21
Mambu
Key people
CEO & Founder: Eugene Danilkis
Co-Founders: Frederik Pfisterer,
Sofia Nunes
FOunded
2011
Sectors
Banking
HeadQuarters
Berlin, Germany
on twitter
@Mambu_com
on The web
mambu.com
Democratising Banking
Mambu began life in 2011 as
a service for those not reached
by traditional banks. In 2016, it
provides core-banking software
and infrastructure to financial
innovators and retail banks. In
the last 12 months it has won 30
new customers and added new
functionality, including support for
various SME and P2P lenders. As
part of a global growth strategy,
which saw it attract $8m investment
in 2016, Mambu plans to expand
its commercial team, increase
investment into the platform and
open further offices to support
growth in Asia and the Americas.
Clients say: At the top rank of
SaaS offerings in the financial
inclusion market.
22
MarketInvoice
Key people
CEO & Founder: Anil Stocker
Co-Founders: Ilya Kondrashov,
Charlie Delingpole
FOunded
2011
Sectors
Lending  Compliance, Risk & Regulation
HeadQuarters
London, UK  London, UK
on twitter
@MarketInvoice
on The web
marketinvoice.com  Meniga’s white label software
Trade invoices for finance
MarketInvoice lets businesses sign
up, sell an invoice and draw down
funds on the same day with no
contracts, hidden fees or personal
guarantees. In 2015, the invoice-
trading platform saw its strongest
ever month, which saw businesses
using the service raise over $30m,
and collected nearly £270m in
repayments. It also passed key
milestones of £600m worth of
finance lent, and 10,000 separate
loans to UK businesses. Customers
now use MarketInvoice on an
average of over 13 times per year,
and with a default rate of just
1.9%, and a crystallised loss of
0.03%, it is providing strong
returns for investors.
Investor says: One of the most
robust models in peer-to-peer
finance and is growing its user
base quickly.
Meniga
Key people
CEO & Founder: Georg Ludviksson
Co-Founder: Viggo Asgeirsson
FOunded
2009
Sectors
Banking
HeadQuarters
Reykjavik, Iceland
on twitter
@meniga
on The web
meniga.com  2012
Rich insights, right time
gives banks the building blocks to
help speed development of online
banking platforms.
Already serving 35 million+
consumers in 16 countries, the
Icelandic FinTech signed a global
framework agreement in late 2015
with Santander Group to implement
its PFM solution in 10 core markets.
And in 2016 it launched a new
service, Dialog, which allows banks
to engage with customers using
highly personalised advice and
product suggestions.
Panel says: Successfully riding the
wave of understanding customer
financial behavioural patterns as
they transition and mature from
internet-online to mobile centric
financial services and banking.
Monetas
Key people
CEO & Founder: Johann Gevers
FOunded
Sectors
Payments
HeadQuarters
Zug, Switzerland
on twitter
@monetasnet
on The web
monetas.net
Bitcoin-inspired payments platform
Monetas’ advanced crypto-
transaction technology uses a
Blockchain secured digital notary
to enable all kinds of financial and
legal transactions, public or private,
worldwide. In 2015, the Zug-
based business partnered with the
Tunisian Post Office and DigitUs to
offer nationwide access to instant,
secure, and affordable merchant
payments and remittances.
Monetas is currently working with
several African partners to provide
coverage to 12 markets in 2016.
These partnerships will bring more
than 300 million people into a
future of financial inclusion.
Number26
Key people
CEO & Founder: Valentin Stalf
FOunded
2013
Sectors
Banking
HeadQuarters
Berlin, Germany
on twitter
@Number26de
on The web
number26.de
Bank that FinTech built
The smartphone-first German
“Bank of the Future” won
80,000 users within one year of
launch and expanded into 6 new
European territories. The digital
bank is already defying a key
FinTech trend by “re”-bundling,
forming strategic partnerships
with other FinTechs, including
Barzahlen and TransferWise. Tie-
ups with other financial services
are on the cards, as Number26
looks to become an essential
financial gateway across Europe.
Onfido
Key people
CEO & Founder: Husayn Kassai
Co-Founders: Eamon Jubbawy,
Ruhul Amin
FOunded
2012
Sectors
HeadQuarters
on twitter
@Onfido
on The web
onfido.com
Verify anyone, anywhere
Onfido’s technology enables
companies to carry out remote
reliable background checks. For
developers, its innovation lies in
being able to quickly integrate
these services with apps or
websites, allowing developers to
easily add background checking.
The London-based business now
employs 72 people across offices in
London, San Francisco, and Lisbon
– and has over 625 customers,
including Onefinestay, Deliveroo
and the NHS.
Client says: They have built their
own proprietary document
scanning software which is
complemented by a range of
other checks to ensure that high
match-rates can be returned in
record time. It really is the best
of both worlds.
23
Personetics
Key people
CEO & Co-Founder: David Sosna
Co-Founder: David Govrin
FOunded
2010
Sectors
Analytics
HeadQuarters
Tel Aviv, Israel
on twitter
@personetics
on The web
personetics.com
Personalised insights
The Personetics Predictive
Analytics platform empowers
banks to analyse vast amounts
of customer data on-the-fly to
accurately identify and anticipate
individual customer needs. In
January, the Tel Aviv based
company with offices in London
and New York announced that it
had signed several seven-figure
contracts with major global banks
and card issuers that will extend
the deployment of its personalised
digital banking technology to over
15 million users.
Personetics say: The banks we
are working with are seeing an
impressive lift in satisfaction and
engagement rates as a result of
delivering personalised insights and
advice to their digital customers.
24
Pockit
Key people
CEO & Founder: Virraj Jatania
FOunded
2013
Sectors
Banking
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@PockitPrepaid
on The web
pockit.com
Banking the unbanked
Pockit provides underserved and
unbanked consumers in the UK an
account into which they can get
salary/benefits paid or fund with
cash at 28,000 locations in the UK. A
card allows them to transact online
and on the high street, pay bills and
share money with friends/family.
The London-based business now has
60,000 customers and processed
£30m in 2015 – a year which saw
it grow 500% on almost every
metric: customers, money in, money
out, balances held on account
and revenue. Pockit also signed
distribution partnerships with two
housing associations in the UK
and one of the largest recruitment
companies to allow its temporary
contractors (200,000) to get paid
into Pockit accounts.
Customers say: Trust Pilot score:
7.2 from 573 reviews.
Prodigy
Finance
Key people
CEO & Founder: Cameron Stevens
FOunded
2007
Sectors
Crowdfunding
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@ProdigyFinance
on The web
prodigyfinance.com
Borderless postgraduate student loans
With $140m disbursed to date
and 4000 students funded,
Prodigy Finance considers itself
a social enterprise. 75% of its
student borrowers come from the
developing world and 34% from
BRIC nations alone. The majority
return to their home countries after
graduation, bringing back global
business networks and learning to
develop their home regions. So far,
Prodigy Finance has funded at least
8 entrepreneurs who have created
jobs in, India, Canada and the UK.
Property
Partner
Key people
CEO & Founder: Dan Gandesha
FOunded
2014
Sectors
Crowdfunding
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@prop_partner
on The web
propertypartner.co
Building a global property
stock exchange
Property Partner allows anyone to
invest in an individual property of
their choice, with as little or as much
they wish, so that they can own a
share, receive rental income and
access capital growth. As of March
2016, the London based business,
just over 12 months old, had
crowdfunded 170 properties with
a total of more than £25m invested
on the platform. Over £4m had been
invested on its unique secondary
market, which allows investors to
trade property shares with other
investors, and exit the market at a
time and price of their choosing.
Investors say: Already one of the
most active buyers in the UK
residential market. Investors earn
an estimated return of 13% per
annum, after fees, free from all the
hassles of conventional buy-to-let.
25
QuanTemplate
Key people
CEO & Founder: Adrian Rands
Co-Founder: Marek Nelken
FOunded
2011
Sectors
Insurance
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@QuanTemplate
on The web
quantemplate.com
Insurance industry expertise with
hedge fund technology
Backed by Allianz and Anthemis
Group, and formed by experienced
re-insurance executives,
QuanTemplate emerged from
Barclays Techstars’ first cohort in
2013 and secured $7.8m Series
A investment September 2015.
Through QuanTemplate’s secure
web-based platform, underwriters
and brokers can conduct all
operational activities required
to trade in the $4.6tn insurance
market (6.7% of global GDP), while
optimising their risk in real-time,
all the time.
Director Says: QuanTemplate’s
dedicated insurance software will
assist in unlocking the enormous
wealth of data that its clients hold,
and transform the analytics process.

“For a while FinTech has had
a vision of unbundling banks
but now banks have a vision of
rebuilding FinTech. As a result, we
are seeing a new hybrid structure
where some bank services are
being substituted by technology,
but most are being augmented
by FinTech. The bottom line is
that we are building the open
sourced bank for the Internet of
Value, or ValueWeb for short. An
open sourced bank uses AI, cloud,
analytics, APIs, apps, devices and
more to allow proactive, predictive,
non-stop, real-time personalised
financial management. What a
far cry from the bank of yesterday
which, in most cases, is still the
bank of today.”
Chris Skinner, best selling
author of Digital Bank and
new book ValueWeb
The FinTech50:
personalisation
27
RateSetter
Raisin
Key people
CEO & Founder: Rhydian Lewis
Key people Co-Founder: Peter Behrens
CEO & Founder: Tamaz Georgadze
Co-Founders: Frank Freund, 2010
FOunded
Michael Stephan
Sectors
2013
FOunded
Lending B2C
Sectors
HeadQuarters
London, UK
Savings
on twitter
HeadQuarters
Berlin, Germany
@RateSetter
on twitter
on The web
ratesetter.com
@weltsparen, @raisin_EN
on The web
weltsparen.de 
Making Today Pay
Investors have lent over $1bn
through RateSetter, establishing
Raise your interest
It took SavingGlobal 15 months
it as one of the most successful
platforms in its field. In 2016 it
to get its first two banks onboard. also became the first marketplace
Now it has more than 25,000
registered clients with more than
lender to publish details of how
its Innovative Finance ISAs will
€700m in deposits, and 12 partner pay when they launch in April
banks from 10 countries with more
than 60 products. The first online
2016. The Innovative Finance ISA
is a new form of ISA which gives
marketplace for European deposits, lenders access to tax-free returns
Raisin offers customers better from the money lent via a P2P
deposit rates than an average bank, site. RateSetter has four different
and gives banking partners from products offering terms ranging
the EU/EEA access to Europe’s from one month to five years with
largest savings pool. Using one- interest rates of up to 5.7%.
time customer identification, a
single online banking interface Customers say: TrustPilot score of
and a selection of reliable, stable 9.8 from 1000+ reviews.
product providers, the Berlin-based
business will expand into Europe
in 2016 under the Raisin brand,
whilst retaining the Saving Global
(Weltsparen) name in Germany.
28
Ravelin
Key people
CEO & Founder: Martin Sweeney
Co-Founders: Mairtin O’Raida,
Leonard Austin, Nick Lally
FOunded
2015
Sectors
Security
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@ravelinhq
on The web
ravelin.com
Fraud detection for the
on-demand economy
Ravelin examines visitor and
payment data in real time, telling
systems which customers to allow,
prevent or flag for review. From
an idea in January 2015, Ravelin
has acquired 13 staff, 2 rounds
of funding totalling £1.6m from
leading FinTech investors, and a
customer base of 12 companies,
including some of the leading
names in the on-demand economy.
On the technical front Ravelin has
built a super-scalable platform
on the cloud, and developed ML
models that are reducing fraud by
over 50% MoM.
Revolut
Key people
CEO & Founder: Nikolay Storonsky
Co-Founder: Vlad Yatsenko
FOunded
2014
Sectors
FX
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@RevolutApp
on The web
revolut.com
Mobile Foreign Exchange
Revolut’s mobile foreign exchange
makes travel money a thing of
memory – together with the fees
that accompany it. The free (for
now) service offers foreign currency
exchange at the interbank rate,
combining a card + app available
across 23 currencies. The Revolut
app also has a host of applications
for those sending money overseas.
As of January 2016, 81,000 users
across 150 countries had transacted
$182m, saving approximately $15m
between them. Revolut also topped
Which? Magazine’s chart for the
best FX rates.
Investors say: An exceptional team
solving a major pain-point for
consumers all over the world, and
they’re doing it with an extremely
elegant, mobile-first user-interface.
Spotcap
Key people
CEO & Founder: Toby Triebel
Co-Founder: Jens Woloszczak
FOunded
2014
Sectors
Lending
HeadQuarters
Berlin, Germany
on twitter
@SpotcapGlobal
on The web
spotcap.com
Real-time short-term loans
Spotcap assesses the real-time
performance of businesses to
grant short-term credit lines and
loans to SME businesses. The
company uses credit-scoring
technology that directly evaluates
real-life business data to provide
fast and flexible financing.
Headquartered in Berlin, with local
offices in Madrid, Amsterdam, and
Sydney, the Rocket internet-backed
company raised its third funding
round in 18 months when it secured
€31.5m in February to further fuel
international expansion.
Suade
Key people
CEO & Founder: Diana Paredes
Co-Founder: Murat Abur
FOunded
2014
Sectors
Compliance, Risk & Regulation
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@SuadeLabs
on The web
suade.org
RegTech is a thing
City regulatory experts believe
Suade’s platform could revolutionise
the entire process chain of
regulation from publication to
implementation. Founded by Diana
Paredes (ex Barclays) and Murat
Abur (ex Nomura), Suade designed
its technology specifically around
regulatory concerns, allowing banks
to achieve continuous compliance,
manage their costs and easily
conduct analysis. Suade’s software
also aims to help smaller banks,
which are disproportionately hit by
regulatory costs.
Sybenetix
Key people
CEO & Founder: Taras Chaban
Co-Founder: Wendy Jephson
FOunded
2011
Sectors
Analytics
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@sybenetix
on The web
sybenetix.com
Cracking the behavioural code
Compliance teams use Sybenetix
Enterprise Behavioural Analytics
to analyse all trades and unusual
behaviour, automatically flagging
and investigating suspicious
activities. In the past year, the
London-based FinTech has added
tier-one banks and the world’s
largest hedge fund to its client
base. It also secured a coveted
place on Accenture’s Innovation
Lab in Hong Kong.
29
SynerScope
Key people
CEO & Founder: Jan-Kees Buenen
Co-Founder: Danny Holten
2011
FOunded
Sectors
Analytics
HeadQuarters
Eindhoven, The Netherlands 
on twitter
@synerscope
on The web
synerscope.com
Illuminating Dark Data
Big Data pioneer SynerScope
sees data as a means, not an end.
The Netherlands-based business
is winning clients in Banking,
Insurance, and Cyber Security and
has partnerships with Amazon,
Google, SAP and Dell. SynerScope
develops technology stacks
designed to deal with the ever-
growing variety of structured and
unstructured data and partnered
with Hortonworks for Hadoop.
Panel says: One to watch as its
technology and capabilities get
tested by some of the larger banks
and insurance service providers.
30
Tradle
Key people
CEO & Founder: Gene Vayngrib
Co-Founders: Ellen Katsnelson,
Mark Vayngrib
FOunded
2014
Sectors
Blockchain
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@tradles
on The web
tradle.io
KYC model on blockchain
Tradle puts the user in control
of their KYC process and data
using the blockchain. An alumnus
of StartupBootCamp’s FinTech
Accelerator, Tradle launched its
first app, Trust in Motion (TiM), to
allow users to start a secure line
of communications and go on-the-
record to exchange documents,
verifications, attributions and
agreements. Resulting records are
stored securely and irrevocably with
global permission-less access and
high resilience to hackers, spying
and take down demands. Tradle
claims to be the first solution to
put the user in control of their KYC
process and data, and allow banks
to make that process and data easily
auditable to regulators.
Traxpay
Key people
CEO: John Bruggeman
Founder: Markus Rupprecht
2012
FOunded
Sectors
Payments
HeadQuarters
Frankfurt, Germany
on twitter
@Traxpay
on The web
traxpay.com
Real money moved in real time
Traxpay moves real money in
real time, delivering the rich data
businesses need to get transparency
and control over their transactions.
It is integrated directly into existing
ERP, purchasing and invoicing
systems, enabling a complete end-
to-end solution for B2B transactions.
Traders on B2B networks using its
solution can change any and every
element of a payment transaction
at any stage of the process, from the
moment a payment instruction is
initiated, straight through to final
settlement and clearing.
Industry says: Its approach to deliver
dynamic payments is more than a
buzzword; it’s how their team has
designed its platform to enable the
delivery of dollars and data between
businesses anywhere, any place,
and in real time.
WeaveWorks
Key people
CEO & Founder: Alexis Richardson
Co-Founder: Matthias Radestock
FOunded
2014
Sectors
Open Source
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@weaveworks
on The web
weave.works
Networking Containers
London-based Weaveworks
enables dev/ops teams to create,
monitor and control microservices
without lock-in to one specific
container platform. Weave stands
the traditional infrastructure-
centric model on its head. Instead
of provisioning infrastructure
and then fitting applications to it,
Weave starts with an application
and moulds the necessary
infrastructure around it.
Our panel put it this way: For banks
to continue to play a leading role
in the increasingly mobile and
smartphone centred world of
their customers, containerisation
will be one of the principle
application models they need to
adopt. Weaveworks is developing
technologies that will greatly assist
in this and is “one to watch.”
31
Yoyo
Key people
CEO & Founder: Alain Falys
Co-Founders: Michael Rolph,
Dave Nicolson
FOunded
2013
Sectors
Mobile Payments,
Loyalty Programs
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on twitter
@yoyowallet
on The web
yoyowallet.com
Payments and rewards rolled into one
Yoyo lets users automatically collect
points and stamps without the
hassle of having to think about it.
Users instantly receive vouchers for
rewards and in-app purchases, and
get digital receipts sent straight to
their phones. For the retailer, Yoyo
provides insight and the integrated
marketing tools they need to reach
targeted customer segments, drive
sales, increase revenue, and offer an
elevated customer experience. Yoyo
Wallet is the fastest growing and
largest multi-retailer mobile wallet
in the UK and recently won Retail
Systems’ 2015 Mobile Technology
System of the Year. In July 2014,
Yoyo was named as one of the Top
10 hottest startups in London by
WIRED UK magazine.
The Hot Ten:
this year’s
ones to watch
With over 1200 companies on our
master list, there is room to look to the
future. So this is our watch list: ten hot
FinTechs who, in our view, will be the
ones to look out for in 2016.
Brolly
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on The web
heybrolly.com
Yet-to-launch Brolly is a personal
insurance concierge powered by
artificial intelligence. Founded by
Aviva alumnus Phoebe Hugh, its
mission is to tell customers if they
are over or under-insured, have
duplicate or missing cover, and if
they can get the cover they need at
a better price.
Clearmatics
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on The web
clearmatics.com
Clearmatics is developing next-
generation clearing machines
for financial OTC markets. Its
blockchain platform brings
together custodians and end-
users on a single platform, where
members can settle securities
trades and automate the
performance of derivatives and
other financial contracts using
Clearmatics’ Decentralised Clearing
Network (DCN) technology.
Lattice
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on The web
latticelimited.com
Hong Kong UKTI winner
now based in London. Fund
managers look set to benefit from
technology that promises to give
them unprecedented control
over portfolio construction and
management using the Lattice
EPD Platform. Customers include
Hermes Asset Management that
run the giant BT Pension Scheme.
Mondo
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on The web
getmondo.com
Mondo didn’t quite break the
internet, but it did set a record for
the fastest crowdfunding campaign
in history when it raised £1m in
just 96 seconds on Crowdcube.
Currently in Public Beta, the digital
bank founded by Tom Blomfeld
will have no branches and will exist
online and as a smartphone app.
Moo.la
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on The web
moo.la
Paradoxically for the brainchild
of a quantum physicist, Moo.la
is staunchly in favour of making
things simple. With a high-
profile founder – former Brookes
Macdonald Head of Investment
Strategy Gemma Godfrey – and
a smart-looking platform whose
medium adroitly underpins
the message, the yet-to-launch
online investment manager is an
unequivocal one to watch in 2016.
OptioPay
HeadQuarters
Berlin, Germany
on The web
optiopay.com
OptioPay is an online payment
platform that increases payments by
offering higher-value gift cards as a
payment method. The Berlin-based
startup is backed by international
venture capitalists and banks and
now has a team of 30.
Ormsby Street Setl
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on The web
ormsbystreet.com
With UK SMEs waiting an average
72 days before the invoices they
send out are settled, Ormsby Street
provides a platform for small
firm bosses seeking to limit their
exposure to the cash flow issues
caused by late payment. SMEs can
now check the financial health
of potential customers before
extending lines of credit to them.
Chosen as one of UKTI’s 33 Tech
Ambassadors to attend SXSW 2015
in Austin, Texas. Customers include
Barclays Bank.
Savedo
HeadQuarters
Berlin, Germany
on The web
savedo.de
Savedo is an online financial
marketplace that allows savers
to invest in safe and high-return
financial products within the
EU. Based in the heart of Berlin’s
tech-scene, Savedo was one of the
first ventures launched by startup
incubator Finleap.
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on The web
setl.io
Setl is a UK based institutional
payment and settlement
infrastructure based on
blockchain technology. In
December it announced the
appointment of Sir David Walker,
former Executive Director of the
Bank of England, as Chairman.
Squawker
HeadQuarters
London, UK
on The web
squawkertrading.com
Squawker provides high-
touch negotiation platforms
for investment banks, agency
brokers, inter-dealer brokers and
proprietary trading firms to find
liquidity, negotiate and execute
trades that are difficult to execute
on the order books or in dark
pools. The negotiation platform
brings together more than 100
sell-side firms, across 13 European
countries, to find, negotiate and
execute difficult blocks on an
anonymous basis.
The FinTech20:
Hong Kong
Between them, our panels looked
at over 500 FinTech companies
in India and Hong Kong. And in
terms of celebrating the innovation
powerhouses across Asia, it was
just a start.
So we’ll be launching a bigger, more
comprehensive view in the shape of
a brand new list later this year:
The FinTech50 Asia.
As the gateway to China, Hong Kong
has some big investors in FinTech
on its doorstep – Alibaba, Baidu,
Tencent. Investment into VC backed
FinTech companies in Asia hit
$4.5bn in 2015, ahead of the $1.5bn
invested in Europe.
Two members of our inaugural Hong
Kong FinTech20 – both Grand Prize
winners – visited the UK in 2015 and
as a result have already established
offices in London and secured deals
with a global technology vendor and
a tier-one asset management firm.
One, Lattice, also made this year’s
Hot Ten (32).
8 Securities
With $9m in funding, the stock
trading and financial management
platform provides its Asian customer
base with over 15,000 US, Hong
Kong and China equities and funds
in a single click. Customers can trade
in RMB, HKD and USD from one
account. 8securities.com
Aidyia
AI based financial market prediction.
The company’s artificial general
intelligence (AGI) technology
identifies patterns and predicts
price movements in global financial
markets & then recommends action.
aidyia.com
AMP Credit
Technologies
AMP enables banks and other
institutional lenders to profitably offer
short-term, unsecured loans to small
businesses based upon electronic cash
flow and other data points – in both
developed and emerging markets.
amp-creditech.com
APrivacy
An award-winning FinTech that
provides the banking industry with
information security and tracking
services. aprivacy.com
AsiaPay
Winner of The Best Company of the
Year for Electronic Payment Solutions
& Innovation 2016 by IAIR. mPayment
solution and payment gateway vendor
AsiaPay brings advanced, secure and
cost-effective electronic payment
processing solutions and technologies
to banks, corporate and SMEs across
12 countries. asiapay.com
Cashyou
A mobile social app which allows
person-to-person payment with no
fees, using NFC, QR code or online.
cashyou.hk
Currenxie
P2P FX specialist that provides
businesses with cost effective and
transparent foreign exchange
services. currenxie.com
Demystdata
Credit referencing that scores
and analyses factors such as
customer identity and behavior to
provide lenders with an additional
mechanism of knowing who their
customers are and measuring
financial risk and customer value.
$5m VC backing & offices HK & NYC.
demystdata.com
Ibox
A mobile point-of-sale (mPOS)
company enabling debit and credit
card payments through smart phones
or tablets. iboxmpos.com
InvestLab
A global trading technology platform
that gives investors, retail brokerage
firms, wealth management businesses
and financial institutions highly
configurable sophisticated tools for
global trading of any equity, option,
or commodity. $10m funding from
investors including Citibank.
investlab.com
Ironfly
Technologies
A SaaS provider of interactive, real-
time data visualisation combined
with a multi asset class portfolio,
order and execution management
system. In March 2016 they
partnered with a global vendor of
risk management and connectivity
software. ironflytechnologies.com
Lenddo
Caters to the unbanked with a lack of
credit history - the big data company
specialises in using non-traditional
data for credit scoring and on-line
verification to help borrowers not
included in the financial system,
unlock loans. Operating in HK,
The Phillippines, India, Columbia,
Mexico. $14m VC backing from Accel,
Blumberg and Omidyar Network.
lenddo.com
Monexo
Innovations
A P2P lending marketplace with
a focus on transparency and
convenience through best-in-class
technology. Hong Kong is its first
market and its first product is focused
on property owners who
can borrow against rental income.
monexo.co
MoneyHero
In less than one year of operations
MoneyHero the personal finance
comparison platform has partnered
with over 75 banks, insurance
companies and telco’s. It is the most
comprehensive financial comparison
service in HK. moneyhero.com.hk
Neat
Mobile banking for the Millennial
generation that makes sure you
keep on top of your spending budget
automatically. neat.hk
PassKit
Mobile wallet marketing and
customer engagement technologies
for banks and FS companies.
Recognised as world-class experts in
unlocking new revenue from mobile
wallet content, proximity marketing,
beacon technology and big data.
passkit.com
Prive
An integrated wealth management
platform and winner of The Asian
Private Banker Technology Award
2015 - Best Provider of External Asset
Management Solutions.
en.privemanagers.com
Quantifeed
Digital wealth management solutions
/ Robo platform offering a white label
platform to online brokers, consumer
banks and wealth managers.
quantifeed.com
WeLend
An online low interest lending
platform that enables users to borrow
money on a personal loan.
welend.hk
Xnotes Alliance
A peer-to-peer decentralised
transaction network using blockchain.
In March it partnered with Freecharge
which has 1 million users per day.
xnotes.com
The FinTech20:
India
If we wanted to coin a collective
noun for Indian FinTech, it might
well be a Magnificence.
Innovation is abundant across India,
and in selecting this list our panel
looked at over 350 companies.
Their inaugural 20 features a mix of
emerging stars as well as those who
might be considered members of
India’s own FinTech Hall of Fame.
Bank Bazaar
BankBazaar’s neutral online
marketplace allows users to search
for, compare and apply for loans,
credit cards and insurance products.
BankBazaar generated a funding of
$60m in its C-Series funding in July
2015, and announced its international
expansion with a move into Singapore
in February 2016. bankbazaar.com
BetterPlace
Safety
Solutions
Founded in January 2015, and with a
recent investment by a former Google
India head, BetterPlace offers services
such as personal, employment,
educational, criminal and training
verification services using data
analytics and application tools.
betterplace.co.in
CitrusPay
The payment gateway company has
over 15 million users. In March 2016, it
announced a tie-up with Facebook for
cards and net banking transactions.
citruspay.com
Coverfox
Online insurance portal helping
users to search, buy, compare and
understand insurance. coverfox.in
Ezetap
Ezetap enables merchants to accept
payments from any mobile wallet
through their Ezetap mobile point-
of-sale application. In March, Ezetap
partnered with mobile Freecharge,
which has over 15 million registered
users for its Freecharge wallet.
ezetap.com
ftcash
ftcash enables offline transactions by
aggregating all payment gateways
including credit cards, debit cards and
mobile wallets under one channel.
Founded by former CFO of Deutsche
Bank India, ftcash was judged
the winner at Paypal’s Start Tank
Competition and Village Capital’s
FinTech 2015 India Program.
ftcash.com
FundsIndia
With 70,000 investors on their
platform, FundsIndia is India’s first
online platform created specifically
for mutual fund investing. Founded
in 2009, it believes that every family
needs a retirement portfolio, and
that most need to save for higher
education needs and medium-term
goals like buying a house.
fundsindia.com
Get Fiscal
Get Fiscal is an invoice and cashflow
management platform for small
businesses that enables timely working
capital loans by connecting to strategic
lender partners. getfiscal.in
IndiaLends
A digital lending marketplace
connecting borrowers and lenders to
facilitate an instant loan transaction.
Indialends.com
Juspay
Juspay aggregates services across net
banking, wallets and cards and offers
payments technology solutions to
merchants. Clients incude Amazon
India and Snapdeal. The Bengaluru-
based mobile payments startup
secured a $5.8m Series A funding
from Accel Partners in February.
juspay.in
Ketto
Ketto is a social network for NGO/
social enterprises in India, serving
as a platform for companies to raise
funds, recruit volunteers, and build
partnerships domestically and
internationally. ketto.org
Milaap
Milaap, which means ‘connecting
people’ in Hindi & Urdu, is India’s
largest funding platform for social
and personal causes. It has shifted its
HQ to Singapore, but its operations
remain firmly focused on India.
milaap.org
Paynear
Founded in 2013, Paynear is a
complete payment solution provider,
enabling individuals & businesses
of all sizes to easily manage their
payment activities. paynear.in
Paytm
With 128 million registered users,
Paytm is the consumer brand of
India’s leading mobile internet
company One97 Communications.
India’s largest mobile commerce
platform anticipates 500m users in
the next five years. paytm.com
Razorpay
Bengaluru-based Razorpay’s payment
gateway features an easy to use API,
quick integration and simple pricing.
Founded in 2013, it raised $9.8m in
Series A funding last year.
razorpay.com
RedCarpet
Mobile Wallet with a unique growth
strategy around loyalty and coupons.
redcarpetup.com
Scripbox
Four-year old Scripbox provides
an algorithmic decision based on
quantitative data about which mutual
funds to buy. Last year, it raised
$2.5m Series A funding from Accel
Partners and angel investors.
scripbox.com
TradersCockpit
The smart trading and investing
portal is ranked India’s #1 in this field
with over 50,000 registered users.
traderscockpit.com
Unocoin
Founded in 2013, Unocoin is India’s
first and largest platform for simple,
secure and seamless trading/
exchange of bitcoins. unocoin.hk
Wishberry
Founded by Anshulika Dubey and
Priyanka Agarwal, Mumbai-based
Wishberry is a rewards-based
crowdfunding platform that enables
users to raise funds for their creative
and innovative ideas.
wishberry.com
38
European
FinTech rises to
the challenge
Alex McCracken, MD Venture Services,
Silicon Valley Bank
Venture capital investment in FinTech reached an all-time
high in 2015, with nearly $14bn invested worldwide,
more than double the global 2014 figure. The US
accounted for half the 2015 total, and Europe 10% – with
the UK and Germany dominating. 64% of investments
took place in the second half of 2015, indicating that
investment momentum may still be increasing.1
Though the start of 2016 has been tough for global
markets, VC investment hasn’t slowed at the rate
one might expect – total venture activity so far is up
compared to this time last year.2 Savvy US investors have
long looked to European businesses for value; and whilst
raising funding is always difficult, there will continue
to be capital available for good high growth European
FinTechs solving real problems for their clients.
At Silicon Valley Bank, we’re expecting to see some
consolidation in European FinTech this year – mainly
when FinTech companies acquire other players in other
countries to grow their customer base and territories.
This will be particularly true if access to equity continues
to tighten. We’re predicting a slowdown in new
companies being funded and clear winners emerging in
some FinTech subsectors including marketplace lenders,
money transfer, robo-advisors and merchant services,
many of whom you can find in the FinTech50. Here are
three subsectors that we’re watching closely in 2016:
Regtech
Compliance with regulation is critical to a FinTech’s
success and sustainability. With financial regulation
and reporting requirements becoming more complex, a
growing industry will emerge to ensure both traditional
financial services companies and emerging companies
stay on the right side of the regulators.
Insurance tech
The insurance industry is two steps behind in terms of
technology, user experience and customer engagement.
We expect to see significant enhancements in the way
businesses and consumers monitor risk, get access to and
insure themselves.
Infrastructure and payments
In December 2015, we asked FinTech leaders where they
see the greatest opportunity for disruption in FinTech.
The majority (37%) said infrastructure and payments,
where Europe is still very much in build mode, so we
expect substantial growth here.
Government support for FinTech
It is heartening to see European governments and
regulators supporting the FinTech sector with initiatives
such as the Single Euro Payments Area and the Payment
Services Directive 2. In addition, regulators are having
open dialogue with startups to help them become
licensed and compliant.
What we’re doing at Silicon Valley Bank
We are delighted to support all of the FinTech50
businesses in this guide, some of whom are our clients.
In recognition of the difficulties many businesses face in
expanding to the US, we are partnering with Stripe to
give entrepreneurs around the world access to the basic
building blocks for starting a global internet business.
Stripe Atlas entrepreneurs will gain access to an
incorporated US business entity, a SVB US bank account
and access to basic services they’ll need to get started.
We also work with MasterCard to provide Commerce.
Innovated, a virtual accelerator in key FinTech
subsectors. Finally, we’ve just moved our UK Branch to
much larger premises on the edge of London’s Silicon
Roundabout at the intersection of the City and Tech City
to provide European innovation businesses with a hub to
meet with potential investors and partners, as well as tap
into our industry expertise. Stop by next time you’re in
London, we’d love to see you.
1. Source: KPMG 2016
2. Source: Mattermark 2 March 2016
svb.com/UK @SVB_UK
Bringing
startup
innovation
to big banks
Travers Clarke-Walker, CMO,
International Group, Fiserv
There is a current explosion of activity in the financial
technology sector in the UK, led by innovation and also
political push factors, with David Cameron’s backing of the
Innovate Finance Manifesto: UK 2020 aiming to advance
the UK’s standing as a leader in FinTech innovation.
An investment boom is being driven by the innovation
of an ever growing number of FinTech startups. Global
investment rates are projected to reach $46bn by 2020,
making it evident that the ongoing technology revolution
is on track to change our financial habits and the way we
interact with financial services and organisations.
Banks are desperate to keep up with these agile
startups to deliver value and stay innovative. However,
most are still busy with the onboarding of customers
to mobile banking. According to a recent Fiserv report,
just over a third (34%) of UK adults are estimated to be
currently banking on their mobile. This is expected to
almost double to 60% by 2020, meaning there
39
will be 14.8 million more mobile banking users over the
next five years.
For many banks, their rigorous procurement processes
and compliance requirements mean they are unable to
contract with the small and agile players of the industry.
This has created an enormous gap between innovation,
the latest technology and the millions of customers of
banks and large financial institutions.
Bridging the innovation gap
Banks want to access this external market, but are
currently held back. This is where leading technology
providers could come into play by providing a link
and access point to innovation. Providers could act
as a link to the latest technology and create an ‘App
Store’ of curated technologies with reduced risk and
standardised contractual relationships that they can
chose from and adapt.
As a suggested model for the industry moving on, leading
technology providers could:
• Assist in integration with third parties
• Be the primary contractual partner
• Curate the marketplace
• Set up a standardisation process for connecting
to the banks by requiring technology providers
to comply with certain measures. This would
give banks an assurance that the provider is
being backed by a trusted partner
FinTech companies as enablers
Leading technology providers are in a very good place to
lead the way and step in to provide that contractual and
technical bridge by providing an integration access point
and capability, almost as a managed service for banks.
This will allow:
• Existing partners to manage the service
• The ability to carry out integration and testing
• Provide a level of accountability as well as
ongoing professional services
Big banks move slowly and have to deal with legacy
technology, which can be a barrier to innovation.
They are often not able to make the necessary changes
within their organisations to be nimble, and that’s
why they trust external players to provide them with
innovative technologies.
By using their existing relationship with leading
technology providers, financial institutions can solve the
issues they have in dealing with smaller organisations
and bridge the gap between the latest technology offered
by innovative startups and their own customers.
fiserv.com agiliti-fiserv.com @Fiserv
 41

Kemp Little FinTech: “Dutch consumers show a high adoption rate

in terms of new digital products and services.
Solving technology law issues FinTechs are discovering this and find that
Dutch banks are attractive collaboration
whilst they’re still in beta_ partners e.g. together with Tink, ABN AMRO
created a PFM app. Making music is much more
www.kemplittle.com/fintech.html fun together”
FinTech@kemplittle.com
Menno van Leeuwen, Manager at ABN AMRO’s
Innovation Centre

Increasingly, cities play an important part in the

ecosystem instead of Governments. London instead
of the UK is FinTech centre of the world. As financial
institutions transform into Tech companies the hotbeds

Dancing to
for FinTech will also thrive in nerd cities like Brainport
Eindhoven, and High Tech campus Twente. Which also
opens the doors to Universities delivering the next

the jazzy
generation workforce and next generation consumers,
who are often unfairly left out of the ecosystem.

A recent study within the Dutch FinTech ecosystem

sounds of
suggests that, right now, there are three main barriers:
dated regulations, insufficient knowledge on the side
of the regulators and flawed collaboration within the

FinTech
PMS 279 PMS 368 PMS 151 PMS 2587
Niels van Rossem, FinTech Strategist
at VROA and Don Ginsel, Founder
Holland FinTech
PMS 637 PMS GREEN PMS 396 PMS 191
FinTech in the Netherlands is finally catching up with
the UK. Or Dutch FinTech is perfectly on schedule.
As my German teacher used to say: everything in the
Netherlands is two years slower, so if the world ends
move to the Netherlands and you will have two more
years to enjoy. But we are catching up in the Netherlands;
we are strong in payments with our own Unicorn Adyen
and even a special FinTech envoy “Willem Vermeend” to
Helping Fintech companies realise their potential serve our interests
As leading chartered accountants and business advisers to the Fintech sector, That said, FinTech is a global playing field so the
we work with our clients to understand their potential and ambitions, ambition should not focus on what’s happening within
our borders but focus on being a springboard for FinTech
and provide all the information and support they need to achieve them.
companies to enter Europe. The next big thing probably
won’t come from Tietjerkstradeel (a small place in The
Netherlands). Real success transcends borders, so an
To help you achieve your objectives, please get in touch with us on Twitter or through our website. open economy like the Netherlands has much to offer
to startups and scaleups from all over the world wanting
@KSFintech www.ks.co.uk/fintech to enter Europe.
ecosystem. Dutch regulations are among the more strict
in the European Union and take a long time to process.
Which is not beneficial to startups whose short time-to-
market is essential to success. Next to this, many FinTechs
cannot be easily labelled as for example a bank or insurer
using the traditional framework. Making it even harder
to obtain the required permits.
A whole new approach would be beneficial to us all,
like the UK has done taking PSD II a step further to API
standards to interchange financial data. Could the Dutch
Central Bank or even the ECB go as far as to launch ‘a
bank out of a box’, so everything is plain vanilla, easy to
regulate and would leave companies free to experiment
and focus on delivering excellent customer experience by
leveraging Tech?
Economic growth is largely dependent on an advanced
financial infrastructure. It is not so much about jobs in
the financial sector, but about an overall strong economy,
one that provides employment in the long run. FinTech
is not just for the financial industry, it IS the financial
industry and therefore essential for a strong economy.
So please lose the rigid conductor of the bombastic
orchestra and choose the agile sounds of Jazz or even the
dexterous skills of a DJ to dance to the sounds of FinTech.
vroa.nl hollandfintech.com @hollandfintech

Success is a science;
Managing Partners “This is the year sophisticated FinTech
if you have the conditions,
comes to the fore in the shape of platforms,
you get the result. infrastructure, solutions that better connect
Oscar Wilde
traditional financial services with customers”
John Creaton Gilbert Carey
FinTech and TMT Industry specialists
Over 20 years excelling for top-tier investment banks
Providing technical and commercial due diligence for Investors, Corporate Finance and Family Offices
Trust in
We work closely with FinTech, Technology, Media & Telecom firms on a pre and post deal basis
A trusted niche firm with global reach; we partner with our clients wherever needed
www.barleycovepartners.com / info@barleycovepartners.com
adoption,
in adoption
we trust
Nasir Zubairi
An estimated $20bn was invested in FinTech in
2015. Governments, investors, banks and entrepreneurs
are clamouring to be involved; or, at the least, not
left behind.
The opportunity is tantalising – a $13tn1 prize,
approximately 17% of the world’s GDP. It is perfectly
understandable why so many are vying to deliver
solutions in FinTech. But I sense the creep of
reticence this year, a degree of scepticism from
investors and commentators.
Several VCs have expressed their concerns about the
exit potential of FinTech startups, of customer adoption
and of business growth. Others point to the efforts
of the banks gathering steam to address their decade
long inertia. There has been a raft of rationalisation in
valuations over recent months as a result; Lending Club,
OnDeck and Square are some examples.
‘Trust’ is the epicentre of the reality check. Banks still
have it, startups don’t. When it comes to money, trust is
43
a crucial requirement. P2P, robo-advisory, remittances,
payments, challenger banks, insurance, even lending, be
it B2B or B2C, all require the customer to put a great deal
of faith in the service provider.
Customer trust can be earned but it is a slow and long
journey in FinTech – it is a damper to adoption and
growth and why we will never have a ‘Facebook’ miracle
in the sector.
Similarly for investors, trust is paramount; trust in the
management team and their awareness of business risks,
their understanding of finance, of customer behaviours
and switching drivers, and trust in execution. The latter
is salient given the realities of addressable markets for
FinTech in B2C and B2B.
Direct to business/consumer startups are sexy and
attract a sizeable premium (both in valuation and press
attention/fame) but convincing millions of customers
(given the size of fees, that must be the objective) to
change their behaviours and put their trust in and money
with you is a fool’s errand if you are rational.
I think of 2016 as the year FinTech matures and I feel
this year’s FinTech50 is representative of this. This is
the year sophisticated FinTech comes to the fore in the
shape of platforms, infrastructure, solutions that better
connect traditional financial services with customers,
enabling existing participants to be more profitable and/
or compete more effectively.
Selling to financial institutions, though still painful and
prolonged, processing existing volumes rather than
building from zero, is a solid business model, especially
when those institutions are now so keen to work with
innovative smaller firms. Cementing competitive
advantage through liquidity (becoming the venue of
choice for participants in a marketplace) makes for a
more robust business. Even when targeting the end
customer, having a few trusted institutions as go-to-
market partners, enabling them while building your
own credibility, makes better business sense.
FinTech still has much to fulfil in the hype cycle but grey
whiskers are beginning to show. That is a good thing – a
bit of wisdom assimilated to drive FinTech to achieve all
that it can.
1. Estimated global financial services revenues – McKinsey.
@naszub
44
Corporate
venture
capital: the big
new attraction
for FinTech
startups?
Eddie Harding, Head of FinTech,
ICON Corporate Finance
There has never been a richer, more varied environment
for FinTech entrepreneurs to access funding and with
the latest research showing corporate VC accounted for
a quarter of all deals across the sector globally last year,
conventional institutional venture capitalists are clearly
up against a new kid on their block.
According to the research by CB Insights, increasingly
active corporate VC units – mainly from the financial,
telecoms and tech sectors – contributed to funding
for FinTech in 2015 ballooning by more than 100% to
$13.8bn across 653 deals, up from $6.7bn and 586 deals
in 2014.
Among European banks Spain’s Santander is a leading
CVC player with its $100m venture capital fund
Santander InnoVentures. Recent investments include
settlement expert Ripple and distributed ledger maker
Digital Asset. Mariano Belinky, Managing Partner
of the fund, says the two deals highlight Santander’s
commitment to blockchain technology, a space it
believes holds “massive potential”, especially for
international payments and settlement.
While FinTech startups might seem an obvious threat
for banks many believe tech giants like Google, Apple,
Facebook and Amazon present a much bigger danger,
boasting as they do – huge, loyal customer bases and
platforms through which they can engage customers
and test and deliver new banking services. Belinky
reckons if any tech giant were to succeed it would
be one of these ‘big four’: “Consumers don’t want
separate providers using different apps for each of their
individual financial needs. Companies like Apple are
extremely effective at fulfilling people’s needs on one
platform and they’ll be more of a threat to incumbent
banks than any other ‘challengers’.”
Much is expected from the rise of Internet of Things
(IoT) and that in turn has led to exciting ideas as to
how financial services might interface with IoT to offer
“Banking of Things” (BoT), whereby data captured by
devices is used, for instance, to provide customers with
real-time information about their personal finances and
customised products and solutions.
Belinky is enthusiastic about BoT, especially its cost-
cutting potential for both banking and commerce: “IoT
technology will provide banks with real-time access to
trade data, eliminating the need for manual checks and
paper documentation such as bills of lading, and allow
near-instant verification of smart contracts. International
trade is expected to grow by 8% per annum until 2020,
with associated trade finance revenues growing to
$70bn. That represents a massive opportunity for banks
to use IoT to streamline trade finance processes and cut
operating costs. Improved data and analysis of exposures
will also reduce losses and, by increasing the scope of
potential clients, increase revenues.”
Across the pond Citibank has been one of the most
active banking investors in FinTech over the past
five years. In considering the potential threat to
banks posed by tech giants, Ramneek Gupta, MD
of Citi Ventures, concedes they have many enviable
strengths. But he cannot see any of these companies
mounting a serious threat in their current form
as “they lack a whole range of other capabilities –
such as underwriting, liquidity management, risk
management, regulatory compliance – that are
necessary before they can succeed as a global bank.”
He has reservations about BoT too, pointing out
the need for new capabilities in areas like user and
“Companies like Apple are extremely effective
at fulfilling people’s needs on one platform and
they’ll be more of a threat to incumbent banks
than any other ‘challengers’”
Mariano Belinky, Santander InnoVentures
machine authentication, security, low cost micro He is convinced tech companies can bring their research,
payments infrastructure and banking services that can know-how and expertise in user experience to bear on
be accessed by ‘things’ via APIs before that particular efforts to re-engineer banking: “It’s a service-driven
vision can be realised. industry. We believe technology companies that are
able to build world-class service experiences will be
Samsung keen on VR for banking well positioned to succeed and disrupt banking.”
Among the tech giants, Samsung has one of the most
active CVC operations, Samsung Ventures. Its forays into Creixell concedes many existing tech giants may
FinTech are focused on areas such as IoT and human- not be willing to take on the challenge of becoming
computer interfaces. Albert Creixell, Head of Samsung’s regulated banks as this may jeopardize other parts of
financial services in Europe, says the company’s most their business but he points to an interesting, trend
important FinTech acquisition so far is LoopPay, a platform breaking development in South Korea as encouraging
that enables Samsung Galaxy devices to perform mobile for techs: “The regulator there has issued a different set
payments at old point-of-sales terminals that only accept of regulations for digital-only banks, making it easier
credit cards using magnetic technology. and more enticing for digital groups to become banks.
Companies like Kakao, South Korea’s leading messaging
Not surprisingly given that physical technology is core group, are already committing large amounts of capital
to its business, Samsung is taking IoT very seriously, to banking initiatives.”
positioning itself to take advantage of the developing
space. It views IoT as four interconnected pillars: Looking ahead Creixell is convinced that over the near
people; data; things (such as customer smartphones and term mobile will have a massive impact on the way
employee PCs); and a process that connects these three consumers pay and track their spending and engage
elements. The process pillar, however, is sorely lacking with services. Further out, he sees virtual reality
at the moment: “It is essential to be able to deliver the bringing about another major shift in the retail banking
right information to the right person or machine at the experience: “As VR matures and reaches a critical mass
right time so the process pillar is vital,” says Creixell. it will be more normal to see younger customers using
“Companies which get this fourth element right in it to deal with complex financial events that in the past
banking will succeed with BoT.” involved visiting a branch. As millennials move away
from physical branches there will be opportunities to
bring new engagement experiences through VR.”
Corporate VCs “unfair advantage” is their close proximity
VC FinTech to end customers and significant existing distribution
channels and consequently institutional VCs can, it
Investment 2015 seems, only look on as corporates increasingly encroach
upon their space. And with no sign of the CVC juggernaut
Globally $13.8bn (653 deals) letting up, FinTech entrepreneurs themselves can look
forward to an even greater range of choice as they try
North America $7.7bn (378 deals) and decide which of them is their best ally.
Europe $1.5bn (125 deals) ICON’s FinTech headline deals include: The sale of
Parmenion to Aberdeen Asset Management, the recap
Asia $4.5bn (130 deals) of Merit Software from Synova Capital & the funding of
SynerScope from Mangrove Capital.
Source: CB Insights
iconcorpfin.co.uk @ICONcorpfin
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