FINTECH50

201450
THE
FINTECH
Introducing the 50
most innovative and
Introducing the fifty most
disruptive
brands in
disruptive,
and game-changing
financial
brands
in FinTech technology
for 2014

FinTech50

THE FINTECH 50

Accelerator & Growth

Contact Us

T: +44 (0)207 367 7800

E: ukenquiries@svb.com

Corporate

Private Equity Finance

and Banking

41 Lothbury, London EC2R 7HF

United Kingdom

SVB_UK

Abundance Generation Karl Harder

Klarna Niklas Adalberth

AcceptEmail Peter Kwakernaak

Lemon Way Sbastien Burlet

BehavioSec Neil Costigan

Linedata Services SA Anvaraly Jiva

BlueSpeck Financial Toby Hughes

mBank Michal Panowicz

borro Paul Aitken

Meniga Georg Ludviksson

Bottomline Technologies Robert Eberle

Merit Software Kerril Burke

Brady Plc Gavin Lavelle

NagraID Cyril Lalo

CA Appstore Emmanuel Methivier

Nutmeg Nick Hungerford

Calastone Julien Hammerson

OpenGamma Kirk Wylie

Clear2Pay Michel Akkermans

OP3Nvoice Paul Murphy

Digital Shadows Alastair Paterson

PAYMILL Mark Henkel

Dovetail Systems Martin Coen

PensionsFirst Benjamin Reid

DueDil.com Damian Kimmelman

Perseus Telecom Jock Percy

eToro Yoni Assia

Pingit Ruchir Rodrigues

ETRONIKA Kstutis Gardiulis

Seedrs Jeff Lynn

ExpenseMagic Ed Drax

SmartStream Philippe Chambadal

Fidor Bank Matthias Krner

Sush.io Thomas Guillaumin

Five Degrees Martijn Hohmann

SynerScope Jan-Kees Buenen

Fixnetix Hugh Hughes

Tbricks Jonas Hansbo

FreeAgent Ed Molyneux

The Currency Cloud Michael Laven

Funding Circle Samir Desai

Thunderhead Glen Manchester

GoCardless Grey Baker

TransferWise Taavet Hinrikus

HelpMyCash.com Laurent Amar

Wonga Errol Damelin

Holvi Kristoffer Lawson

Zopa Giles Andrews

iwoca Christoph Rieche

Ixaris Alex Mifsud
THREE

FinTech50

FinTech50

THE PANEL

WHY DID WE LAUNCH THE FINTECH50?

Debu Purkayastha Google

For so many good reasons, but not least because the time
was just right.
The idea began with a conversation, and then very quickly
took flight - thanks to the power of collaboration and four
exceptionally insightful partners: ICON Corporate Finance,
Silicon Valley Bank, Hotwire and Fox Williams.
As business top 50s go, we all wanted to make this one
different which is why there is no outright winner, no call
for submissions and why the list is not selected solely on
the basis of turnover or recession-busting growthhowever
impressive the numbers.
This 50 is all about the qualities that make FinTech a hot
technology sector offering the most eye-watering investment
opportunities available - anywhere. Every business featured
has either the potential to become a game-changer or the
competitive staying power to continue being one. Its our
small tribute to the pioneers who are redefining financial
services globally. And to the movers, shakers and downright
disruptive technologies across Europe who, in our panels

Gareth Lodge
Celent

Conny Dorrestijn
Shiraz Partners

Eddie Harding ICON

Corporate Finance

Pierre Suhrcke
Pascal Capital

Christian Erlandson
Monitise

John Chaplin Ixaris

Alex McCracken
Silicon Valley Bank

Alex Macpherson Octopus Ventures

Baruk Pilo ICON

Corporate Finance

Jon Bennet
Silicon Valley Bank

Roy Vella V2 Ltd

Julie Lake FinTech50

Photo credits: TheRealMikeyBoy, Harshil.Shah.

Sole Chirco
Hotwire

Nicky Cotter
FinTech50

Dave Birch
Consult Hyperion

view, will be the Ones to Watch in 2014.

London may have the FinTech Factor right now. But the
FinTech50 isnt just about London. Its about the FinTech
Revolution taking place right across Europe.
Very special thanks must go to The City of London, UKTI
Financial Services Organization, Barclays Accelerator Powered by Techstars, Google, Monitise, Index Ventures,
Octopus Investments, Eric van der Kleij, Level39, broadcaster
and journalist Laura Kuenssberg and, of course, to our
FinTech50 panel. Their generous gift of time, expertise and
resources on the FinTech50, and the first ever FinTechCity
London, ensured that these were two ideas that didnt just
fly, but which also became a very tangible reality.

Julie Lake and Nicky Cotter

Founders, The FinTech50 and FinTechCity
www.fintechcity.com

FinTech50

DISRUPTION AND RENEWAL:

THE BANKING LANDSCAPE
By Chris Skinner, Financial Services Club

e all know that the internet has changed things.

How much can be seen by just looking at how
addicted we are to our smartphones and apps
today. These are driven by the internet and, in 2014, we
are starting to see the appearance of the internet of things
where everything, everywhere is connected in real-time,
all the time. This is emerging with the launch of smart
watches and wifi glasses, but it goes far wider and deeper
than these gadgets as cars, houses, streets and buildings are
all becoming internet-enabled.
What we realise with these developments however is
that we are at the equivalent of the car industry in the last
century. Automobiles were appearing at the end of the 19th
century and, by the second decade of the 20th century, had
moved mainstream thanks to the Model T Ford. Look at how
the automotive industry has evolved a century later, and you
get an idea of where the internet is today. It is at the stage
of the Model T Ford. Theres a long way to go.
Nevertheless, the introduction of mass market, cheap and
affordable transportation led to the revolution of transport
that created cities and urbanization a century ago. Today, we
are laying the transport system for global communications
for this century through the mobile internet of things, and
this is as fundamental a revolution as the introduction of
the automobile, telephone, electricity, railways and other
innovations of the last century.
For banks, this means that they are starting to see
disruptions emerging that will change their own businesses.
These began with simple ideas, such as peer-to-peer lending,
and have started to snowball as we see crowdsourcing and
crowdfunding becoming a viable alternative to traditional
trade finance, credit and loans. The mobile internet is
displacing the traditional forms of payment cards and cash
and so we have seen Visa and MasterCard innovating hard
to keep up. Even then, new players like Square and iZettle
are making inroads into these traditional forms of payment.
In investment markets, we bump into new investment
models such as Stocktwits, eToro and Chi-X BATS, all of
which leverage the digitisation developments of the new
technology age. In insurance, AXA has launched Soon, a
social insurance model in France, whilst Friendsurance in
Germany has already reinvented the business model of

SIX

insurance by creating a peer-to-peer insurance model.

In other words, all aspects of the financial markets are
being disrupted by new business models and innovations
based upon the internet of Web 2.0, or Web 2.4 as we should
think of this today (four years into the second decade of
internet renewal).
Banks that are onboard with this renewal of technology
are investing heavily to adapt and refresh their core
infrastructures. Banks that have idly sat and waited
are now starting to feel the impact of this change. Their
legacy architectures and infrastructures are creaking and
groaning and starting to fail. That is the big impact of both
the disruption of technology with their customers and the
need for renewal to keep up with customer needs and new
competition. Meanwhile, the opportunity presented by
these failings provides the upstarts, with their fresh systems
and business models, with a moment to leverage change and
win business.
The march of the technology revolution will continue
through this century, but the major developments of change
and the significant new players to emerge from such change
are happening today. The change will hand an opportunity
for the new to replace the old, for the digital to replace
the physical and for innovators to disrupt incumbents.
This is the world you face right now and the FinTech50
are potentially the emergent dominant forces of this new
world. Whether they achieve thier ambitious goals will be
down to their ability to execute their vision and implement
their plans, but the opportunity is certainly there. It is there
because the world is being reinvented by the internet. That
is the whole world, not just the banking world, so watch out,
as thist disruption will only get faster and have more impact
over the next decade. Nothing will stop it.

Chris Skinner is chairman of the Financial Services Club,

CEO of Balatro and author of the best-selling book Digital
Bank. He comments on the financial markets through his
blog the Finanser and can be reached at:
chris.skinner@fsclub.co.uk.

ABUNDANCE GENERATION
KARL HARDER, MD

bundance Generation was the

first, regulated, crowdfunding
platform that allows people
to invest directly from just 5, in
renewable energy projects in the
UK. We call it democratic finance
and have created a revolutionary
online experience that gives investors
complete control and transparency
over how their money is invested.
We want to see a world where small
investors replace the role of the big
banks in financing infrastructure and
businesses, keeping more of the return
for themselves and having a real choice
about how their money is invested.
Abundance is the first of a new
breed of financial services company
that seeks to compete directly with
traditional forms of investment and
create meaningful disruption that
improves both customer service and
investor returns.

ACCEPTEMAIL PETER KWAKERNAAK, CEO

About

Abundance puts the investor in

control. Its disruptive use of technology and FCA-regulated platform
revolutionises the experience of
investing, allowing anyone in the UK
to invest from just 5 in the project of
their choice - starting with renewable
energy and branching out to allow the
democratic finance of infrastructure
and business in the UK and beyond.
@Abundancegen @karlharder

ne in eight bill payments

contains typing errors, resulting in unnecessary reminders,
double payments or matching problems in the debtors administration.
Paper bills are expensive, inefficient
and environmentally unfriendly. This
inspired us to develop the concept of
AcceptEmail. We enable companies to
send digital payment requests (bills,
reminders, promises-to-pay), resulting in a safe and prompt payment
by their customers. AcceptEmails
can be sent via multiple communication channels: e-mail, mobile, text or
online. The threshold for switching
to digital billing is eliminated. Our
smart billing solutions contain valuable and unique features such as the
Dynamic Status Indicator for real-time
status update, insights into customer
payment behaviour, smooth integration tooling, correct representation in
all e-mail clients (renderability) and
spam-filter avoidance. AcceptEmail

is independent of payment institutes,

banks, PSPs and BSPs. We do not
collect money on behalf of customers;
we just enable the payment initiation
by means of all available online and
mobile payment methods.

About

AcceptEmail is an electronic bill

presentment and payment service for
B2C and B2SME utilised by a large
number of blue chip companies in
telecom (T-Mobile, Tele2, KPN, UPC),
utility (Nuon, Essent, Electrabel),
retail (Dell, IKEA), consumer finance
(Santander, BMW, Atradius), insurance
(Aegon, CZ, Achmea) and education
(University of Amsterdam, Maastricht
University). The service is available
in The Netherlands and other European countries. AcceptEmail is based
in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
@AcceptEmail @ PeterKwakernaak

SEVEN

FinTech50

FinTech50

BLUESPECK FINANCIAL TOBY HUGHES, FOUNDER & MD

BEHAVIOSEC
NEIL COSTIGAN, CEO

or greater IT security without

affecting customer experience.
BehavioSec offers Behaviometric solutions in order to create a multi
layered approach for authentication
and verification purposes. The solution is designed to tackle the demands
for greater security without impacting
user experience or impeding e-commerce.
The product monitors such behavior as keystroke dynamics and/or
smart phone input such as gestures,
touch pressure, swipe angle etc.
User operation is mapped against
that users known digital profile to
verify that users indentity, therefore
preventing fraudsters from obtaining
access or hijacking a session.
BehavioSec is gaining customer
traction in the internet banking space,
particularly mobile authentication.
Our technology has been deployed
to millions of mobile and internet
banking customers in Scandinavia and
Northern Europe.
About
BehavioSec adds multilayer security
to online and mobile transactions,
authentications,
and
identifications through user behavior, without
impacting user experience.

EIGHT

he financial services industry

should help people achieve
their goals and dreams and
protect them if things go wrong. Your
Wealth was founded on this principle
and weve built the technology necessary to put the needs of the consumer
at the heart of financial services.
Financial firms and institutions can
use our technology as a low-cost platform for innovation within their own
product or advice verticals. In this way
were planning to disrupt the industry from within and change the way
people can plan for the future, access
financial products or interact with
financial advice.
Were making the world of finance
truly accessible for everyone whether
they have as little as 5 or as much as
50 million.

About
BlueSpecks Your Wealth provides
free-to-access technology to help
people make choices over their financial futures, whether theyve got 5 or
50 million. Our technology, which
can be accessed via mobile, tablet or
desktop devices, helps people gain
control over their finances while
delivering complementary content,
tools, products and financial advice.
@BlueSpeckLtd

BORRO PAUL AITKEN, FOUNDER & CEO

hrough our innovative online

platform, we have been
providing an alternative source
of finance to customers in the UK
since 2008, and in the US since 2012
servicing individuals and business
owners who have been let down by
traditional sources of finance. While
multiple government schemes implemented over the past few years have
had a dramatic effect on the mortgage
and secured loan sector, banks and
other traditional lenders are still in
lending retrograde especially when it
comes to SMEs. Invention is born out of
necessity and while we have witnessed
many alternative lenders enter (and
leave) the market both in personal and
business lending, we would argue that

borro has paved the way as the non-bank

provider of liquidity for individuals and
entrepreneurs.
About
borro is the UKs leading online
personal asset lender. Individuals
and business owners can secure loans
of up to 1,000,000 against assets
including fine art and antiques, prestige cars, wine collections, jewellery
and more. Assets are valued by borros
expert in-house valuation team, ensuring clients are offered the best possible
loan value and therefore ultimately
a quick and simple liquidity solution.
@BorroLoans

BOTTOMLINE TECHNOLOGIES
ROBERT EBERLE,
PRESIDENT & CEO
About
Bottomline
Technologies
providets cloud-based payment, invoice
and banking solutions to corporations, financial institutions and banks
around the world. The companys
solutions are used to streamline, automate and manage processes involving
payments, invoicing, global cash
management, supply chain finance
and transactional documents. Organizations trust Bottomline to meet their
needs for cost reduction, competitive
differentiation and optimization of
working capital.
@BottomLineTech

FinTech50

FinTech50

CA APPSTORE, EMMANUEL METHIVIER, CEO

BRADY PLC
GAVIN LAVELLE,
PRESIDENT & CEO
About
Brady plc is the leading provider of
software solutions for global commodity trading. They offer a choice of
trading and risk management applications designed to enable producers,
consumers, financial organizations
and trading companies to manage
all of their commodity transactions
in an integrated solution - including
pre-deal analysis, trade capture, risk
management, foreign exchange, credit
risk, logistics, cash management, physical operations, back office financials,
and treasury settlement. Complementing its advanced ECTRM solutions,
Brady also delivers unrivalled recycling management solutions to some
of the worlds largest commercial recycling firms.
Brady has more than 25 years of
expertise in the commodity markets
and over 300 customers worldwide
depend on our software solutions to
manage risk and deliver vital business
transactions across their global operations. Brady customers include many
of the worlds largest financial institutions, trading companies, miners,
refiners, producers, mills, scrap processors, tier one banks, a large number of
London Metal Exchange (LME) Category 1 and 2 clearing members and
many leading European energy generators, traders, and consumers.
Our expert market knowledge,
professionalism and proven problem-solving capabilities enable us to
understand the challenges our clients
face and develop tailored solutions
that consistently meet and exceed
their needs.
@BradyPlc

TEN

odays banks are living in a

new era with the explosion
of mobile apps and young
tech-savvy customers who require
personalized and innovative services.
Crdit Agricole Store is a portal that
allows any entrepreneur to develop
mobile applications for our 21 million
customers in a co-operative mode.
CA Store is based on three unique
concepts:

Open Innovation: the store

allows customers to download
applications, but especially to
participate in their co-creation
via a dedicated platform, a
first in France;
Open Data: Digital partner
companies design applications
that customers think of Credit
Agricole and use with their
own bank data secure, a European first;
Digital Cooperative: bringing

together digital partners in a

cooperative, which pool their
resources to provide applications, a world first.
We believe Open data is the future
of financial services and may expand
sooner to other sectors and companies.
About
Credit Agricole Store is the first European Appstore proposed by a bank and
where financial apps are co-created
between clients and developers. CA is
the only European player to combine
open APIs to enable external developers to code apps for their clients, a
co-creation platform for customers to
invent the bank of the future and an
appstore displaying multiple enriched
services.
@castore_projet @e_methivier

CALASTONE
JULIEN HAMMERSON,
CHAIRMAN & CEO

e are delighted to be part

of the FinTech50, as technological innovation is at
the core of our business. 2013 was
an exciting year for us, celebrating as
we did our five-year anniversary and
cementing our global footprint with
business expansion in Europe, Asia,
Australia - we are now active in 17
domiciles. Calastone is very much a
solutions company that is interactive,
collaborative and client-focussed. As
well as working to innovate in areas
we think relevant, we know it is critical to develop electronic transaction
network services which our clients
ask us to provide. As an example of
this, in partnership with Barclays we
launched an exciting settlement solution and we will continue to provide
innovative solutions like this in 2014.
About
Calastone is the global fund transaction network, offering electronic
transaction solutions in and across 17
domiciles to more than 400 customers. Calastones technology works to
increase efficiency through reducing
cost and removing technical barriers
to automation of fund transactions
through our interoperability, network
and service.
@CalastoneLtd

CLEAR2PAY MICHEL AKKERMANS, CHAIRMAN & CEO

e are delighted to be on
the FinTech50 list as a
provider of groundbreaking financial services technology.
At Clear2Pay we have one shared
passion and mission: payments made
easy. Twelve years ago, we were the
first to offer banks technology built in
this century for this century, with our
OPF payment hub vision and platform,
which has since been adopted by
over 30% of the global top 50 banks.
The fact that we are on the FinTech
list today proves that we have been
able to retain our innovative spirit,
whilst having grown into an established FinTech player. We continue
to innovate at the forefront with our
recent launch of Vivas, offering banks
the ability to transform customers

bank accounts into digital accounts,

handling all types of digital and monetary value, whilst adding transaction
value over and above the payment to
customers, commerce and banks alike.
About
At Clear2Pay, with over 1,200 staff in
24 offices we enable customer centric
payments from conception and
design, to production, deployment and
testing. Our technology allows banks
to acquire anything, process anyhow,
clear & view anywhere - turning the
banks into key custodians of all transactions of virtual (coupons, miles) and
real (monetary) value across all channels.
@Clear2Pay

ELEVEN

FinTech50

FinTech50

DOVETAIL SYSTEMS MARTIN COEN, CEO

D
DIGITAL SHADOWS
ALASTAIR PATERSON,
CEO

igital Shadows is a great

example of a British start-up
poised to take on the global
financial services market. Our
two-year-old London based company
runs a cyber-monitoring service that
helps some of the worlds largest
banks to prevent cyber attacks and
data leakage from their organizations.
Weve been recognised for innovation by SWIFT, Cisco and the
Technology Strategy Board and were
named a Gartner Cool Vendor for
2013. We won a place on Accentures
FinTech Innovation Lab, and our
successful VC round has accelerated
our development.
The future of the company is bright
as we expand across top-tier banks in
the UK and Europe and open offices
in New York to support our growing
American customer base in 2014.
About
Digital Shadows runs a cyber monitoring service that secures companies
ever-expanding digital footprints. As
organizations engage more with social
media, cloud services and mobile
devices our advanced analytics and
big-data technology; keep their security and reputation intact.
@digitalshadows @patersonae

TWELVE

ovetail has the strongest

organic growth in the sector
and an unrivalled delivery
track record. We are leading the revolution in payment systems by providing
a clean, modern solution proven in the
most challenging operational environments. Through configuration of
our standard payment services hub,
four of the top six global transaction
banks as well as many other large and
smaller banks are gaining competitive
advantage using Dovetail.
Uniquely, Dovetail normalises all
payments for processing in real-time
enabling banks to standardize their
operations and drive innovation in
areas such as mobile payments, FX,
bulk cross border payments, intraday
liquidity management - real-time and
historical information services.

About
Dovetail builds and implements
enterprise banking software, specifically, the Dovetail Payment Services
Hub. Dovetails ability to execute and
support mission critical projects is
facilitating a new wave of competition
in transaction banking by providing
efficient, consolidated, and adaptable
processing of payments, from bulk
ACH clearing to global RTGS settlement.
@DovetailSystems

DUEDIL.COM
DAMIAN KIMMELMAN,
CEO

ere extremely proud to be

among the new generation of FinTech companies
helping to transform the financial
services industry in the UK. At DueDil
we turn data into insight to empower
companies to make decisions with
confidence. Were opening up the
market for this information and creating new opportunities for both data
providers and those seeking information on private companies.
The past year has been especially
exciting for us. We closed our Series
A funding round, opened up access
to data from 20 European countries
via our API, brought the product to
feature parity with long-established
incumbents and grew the team from
20 to 40. Over 150,000 companies are
currently using our services and were
on track to hit one million users in Q1
2014.
About
DueDil is a one-stop shop for business
information, intelligence and analysis. We link vast amounts of data
to make discovering information on
private companies easy. By giving
people easier access to information on
companies and the people who run
them, we can help them make better
business decisions.
@duedil @duediler

ETORO YONI ASSIA, FOUNDER & CEO

e started out when people

found it hard to believe
that investing can be
turned into a social experience, and
I think now its safe to say that 2013
was the year when our users proved to
everybody that the world has changed.
We are proud to lead this revolution,
where investing meets the social web.
With over three million users, and just
closing over 100m trades executed on
our platform, we have made it clear to
the world that social investing is the
future. 2013 has been a tremendous
year for eToro, with amazing growth
of our social network and dozens of
features big and small that make our
user experience better.

About
eToro is a social investment network,
driven by the community of over three
million users from 200 countries. Our
goal is to open the global markets to
everyone, and enable a true democratization of the finance world. eToro
users can follow and even copy each
others investing activity, as well as
share ideas, strategies and knowledge,
thus creating the worlds largest social
investment network which is powered
by the wisdom of the crowd.
@eToro @yoniassia

THIRTEEN

FinTech50

FinTech50

EXPENSEMAGIC
ED DRAX, MD

FIDOR BANK
MATTHIAS KRNER,
CHAIRMAN

ach month there is the repetitive chore of collating receipts

and invoices in wallets and
desk drawers before that grim half
day or full day of entering them in to
an Excel doc for our accountant. Its
wasted time and tedious.
ExpenseMagic is a web and mobile
App that avoids all of this hassle.
Anytime, anywhere you simply photograph a receipt with the iPhone App
and click upload. The image is
stored online, all the data is extracted
by our bookkeepers and at the end of
the month you receive PDF and Excel
reports of all the previous months
costs. No more lost receipts, no more
data entry. Just peace of mind and
time saved for more important business tasks.
About
For businesses drowning in fiddly
receipts and for people who hate the
data entry each month, ExpenseMagic
is an App that captures, stores and
processes all of a businesss costs and
invoices with the snap of a photograph
and turns them in to reports and
spreadsheets. Its Instagram meets
Excel.
@ExpenseMagic @eddrax

ETRONIKA KSTUTIS GARDIULIS, CEO

t is amazing how technology

changes the way we interact,
shapes the way we live and extends
our abilities. We are a part of this
process of change. Our e-banking solution BANKTRON simplifies the usage
of e-banking services and attracts
end-users with friendly interface and
extended functionalities. We have been
developing IT solutions for 13 years
already and 2013 was a magical year
for our company. Increased number of
skilled team members, entry to new
markets and awards for BANKTRON
made us once again realize that our
input in this industry is valid and that
we are on the right track to provide

FOURTEEN

necessary solutions. I am proud to

claim that we create experience, experience that is positive and valuable.
About
At ETRONIKA, we join emerging
trends and innovative techniques to
create unique opportunities for our
clients businesses. Our full suite of
e-banking solutions allows financial institutions to serve both retail
and corporate customers, offering
them highly personalized, attractively
simple and enhanced e-banking experience via all channels and devices.
@EtronikaTweets

idor Bank AG stands for a new

way of banking, using web 2.0
functionalities to redefine the
relationships of users and their bank.
Fidor TecS account technology is
an open eco-system integrating thirdparty applications offering more than
just payment, e. g. saving certificates,
loans, FX, precious metals but also
crowd finance, peer-to-peer banking
and virtual currencies within that
account technology.
About
Fidor is a global peer-to-peer bank.
The first bank in the world where you
can help shape the interest of FidorPay.
The rule is simple: The more Facebook
Likes, the higher the interest rate. The
minimum interest rate of your FidorPay account is 0.5% pa. By the 25th
of each month, if the bank achieves a
certain number of Likes, then a higher
interest is paid and calculated, starting
in the month at the rate achieved in
each case. From 22,000 Likes FidorPay will offer 1.5% interest per annum
for the remainder of the year. At the
end of the year, the interest rate resets
again to 0.5% pa.
@FidorBank @Kroener_m

FIVE DEGREES MARTIJN HOHMANN, CEO

hen we founded our

company three years ago,
we set out to be a challenger
in the core banking technology space
with a radical new vision: building
state-of-the-art
technology
that
would support financial institutions
with pure customer-centricity at the
heart of our engine. This means for
example providing channel access
(from the customer perspective),
rather than bank-driven cross-channel
integration. With our new pure SOA
technology this can be done and we
have seen an adoption of our product
in the front and mid office of banks
enabling true customer dialogue.
This year we launch an equally agile
alternative for the product and admin
functionality, commonly known as the
back office. Being on the FinTech50
list is a massive compliment as it
clearly positions us as an innovator
and challenger with the aim to
invigorate banking.

About
Five Degress (NL|IS) offers the real
alternative to banks and other financial institutions wishing to serve their
customers differently. It is faster, it is
lower cost and is more transparent. It
connects from and to any device and
through Matrix, its core BP engine
and banking solution, it delivers more
insight to all parties involved: bank
staff, clients and regulators.

FIFTEEN

FinTech50

FinTech50
FinTech50

FREEAGENT ED MOLYNEUX, FOUNDER & CEO

FIXNETIX
HUGH HUGHES,
CHAIRMAN & CEO

ixnetix has become the leading

financial technology provider
because of the people we select
to represent our business. Its ironic
to rank the number one success factor
for a technology vendor as man rather
than machine. When I started my
career nearly 50 years ago, firms were
built on the premise of making good
relationships and always putting the
customer first. Ive been able to carry
this mantra through to Fixnetix whilst
choosing the right variety of team
members and inspiring all of them
with the freedom to innovate and win.
Today, we are one of the last independent providers worldwide and the
early adapter types consider us to be
a veteran and somewhat of a legend.
About
Fixnetix is a 2013, 2012 and 2011
award-winning company providing
outsourced managed services across
multiple asset classes to leading
global banks, hedge funds and proprietary trading groups seeking ultra-low
latency trading, market data, hosting,
infrastructure connectivity and risk
management solutions. The company
is in 33 co-location and proximity
hosting centres across Europe, USA,
Asia-Pac and Africa and offers trading
access to over 89+ markets.
@Fixnetix

SIXTEEN

t FreeAgent our vision is to

Democratize
Accounting.
Back in 2007 when I started
the company with my co-founders
Olly and Roan, we were just trying to
build something that would help us
run our own businesses.
Back then we were nave enough to
set out a bold scope for our product: to
streamline everything from timeslip to
tax return. But the software-as-a-service model allowed us to rapidly build
out from our initial product and were
now well on our way to delivering
against our ambition. Were currently
launching our Self Assessment Filing
tool, initially just for Sole Traders,
that automatically fills in 90% of their
income tax return - the bane of most
business owners lives.
Were reinventing what accounting software means for very small
businesses and also redefining their
relationship with accountants. By
providing real-time access to microbusinesses financial health data, were
also poised to transform the small
business financing landscape as well.

About
FreeAgent are pioneers of cloud
accounting for freelancers and
micro-businesses, and are currently
the UK market leader with over 34,000
paying subscribers. FreeAgent are
ranked #8 in the Deloitte Fast50 2013
and are winners of the AccountingWeb
2013 Software Satisfaction Awards in
both the Accounting Software and
Expense Management categories.
@FreeAgent @edmolyneux

FUNDING CIRCLE
SAMIR DESAI,
CO-FOUNDER & CEO

unding Circle is revolutionizing

the world of finance by allowing
businesses to sidestep the banks
and borrow directly from investors in
both the UK and US.
Our technology is truly disruptive. We help businesses get fast,
low-cost finance whilst investors earn
a better return on their money. We
have trebled in size in the last year,
and since launching three years ago
we have helped thousands of businesses to borrow approximately 200
million.
We recently launched in the US,
and will soon be moving into property and asset finance as part of our
commitment to helping millions of
businesses access finance to grow. We
believe Funding Circle could account
for 10-20% of the market within a
decade, but it isnt just about growth
- we want to build a sustainable
business, which means creating an
atmosphere which is innovative and
fun.
About
Funding Circle is a global online
platform or marketplace that links
investors both individuals and
organizations - with businesses that
need loans to expand and grow. We
help thousands of businesses access
finance, typically within two weeks,
whilst investors earn attractive returns
on their money.
@FundingCircle @samirdesai01

GOCARDLESS GREY BAKER, HEAD OF OPERATIONS

oCardless supercharges the

UKs Direct Debit network.
In 2013 we became the UKs
largest Direct Debit provider, allowing thousands of merchants to bill
their customers by Direct Debit for the
first time. In 2014 well be rolling out
across Europe.
Taking payments should be simple
and cheap, but its not; suppliers are
forced to invoice and wait unpaid for
months. Subscription services pay
high credit card fees and suffer churn
due to card expiry.
GoCardless has already started
changing that in the UK. Starting
from February well be fixing it across
Europe, and helping some of the UKs
largest companies collect from across
the continent.

About
GoCardless helps any UK company
start collecting payment by Direct
Debit in 60 seconds. In two years
weve become the UKs largest
Direct Debit provider. In 2014 were
launching across Europe to become
the preferred way to take recurring
payments in Europe.
@GoCardless @greybaker

SEVENTEEN

FinTech50

HELPMYCASH.COM
LAURENT AMAR,
FOUNDER

elpMyCash.com set itself the

challenge to improve your
experience when choosing
financial products, accounts, deposits, cards and mortgages. HelpMyCash
is an innovative web platform from
which to calculate and verify the
accuracy of information at the point
of inquiry or purchase. HelpMyCash
works with the conviction that this
is the ideal moment for changing the
financial sector and ensuring that the
consumer finally has access to transparent and understandable choices,
and the ability to take control of their
personal finances and future.
@infoHelpMyCash @laurent_amar

FinTech50

HOLVI KRISTOFFER LAWSON, CEO

IWOCA
CHRISTOPH RIECHE,
CO-FOUNDER & CEO

s a young child into computers,

technology and programming,
I never imagined I would be
involved with setting up a banking
service. It was not my dream job.
Holvi was, however, born to serve a
very real need: I was the founder of
an event that grew into the largest
digital art festival in the Nordics, and
Tuomas Toivonen was the unfortunate treasurer. That, and a number
of other activities and businesses,
showed us that instead of being actually useful, banking was getting in the
way of getting things done. Everybody
had a different idea of how the budget
had been developing, and tying our
finances up with reality was tricky
and error-prone. We tried solving this

in various ways but soon realized that

to do it properly, to do it easily for the
user, we had to do what nobody had
before had the guts to try: to rethink
how banking fits into our businesses,
activities and lives. It was fundamentally broken. We created Holvi to solve
that.
About
Holvi was founded in 2011 in
Helsinki, Finland, with the goal of
rethinking banking services and how
they connect with our lives. It is regulated by the Finnish FSA and has been
growing rapidly since silently opening
to the Finnish market in Autumn 2012.
A European launch is planned soon.
@Holvi @Setok

icrobusiness is thriving with

a 60% rise in the number
of zero-employee companies since the turn of the millennium.
Traditional business lenders struggle to deal with this category due to
their high cost structures and outdated
processes. We started iwoca to bring
a data-driven approach to assessing business creditworthiness. This
gives low-cost yet accurate lending
decisions allowing us to invest in an
entirely new type of entrepreneur.
With greater access to capital, microbusinesses can take advantage of
opportunities previously only available to larger competitors. The result?
Increased innovation, high-quality job
creation and sustainable economic
growth.
About
iwoca offers fast, flexible business
loans to online retailers. Integrations
with eBay, Amazon and other ecommerce platforms allow iwoca to view a
retailers real-time trading history and
customer feedback. This data feeds
into a proprietary risk algorithm to
give fast, accurate lending decisions
without the high costs associated with
traditional lenders.
@iwoca @christoph_iwoca

IXARIS ALEX MIFSUD, CO-FOUNDER & CEO

e are going through an

explosion of competing
and complementary innovations in the payments eco-system.
How can FinTech vendors and financial institutions increase their chances
of surviving through this Cambrian
period in payments?
This is a good thing, although too
many moving parts may be deterring
mass customer adoption. I personally
believe in accommodating diversity
rather than fighting it. Thankfully, the
Internet has taught us how to do this,
first by connecting existing networks
and by making them accessible to
those who build and deliver applications. The payments industry is ripe
for this development.

About
Ixaris enables businesses and consumers to move and use money worldwide
quickly, affordably and easily just as
the Internet has enabled the movement and use of information. Ixaris
technology connects global and local
payment networks, financial institutions and customers, applications
and devices to make this Internet of
Money possible.
@ixaris @alexmifsud

NINETEEN

FinTech50

FinTech50
FinTech50

LEMON WAY
SBASTIEN BURLET
PRESIDENT

nnovating in the banking industry as a payment intermediary is

like entering a boxing ring without
knowing the rules, without protections, with many clever, trained and
organized competitors. But if you
stand-up, in the adversity, you can
have the chance to challenge the
dinosaurs and enter the small club of
FinTech companies that will invent the
future of payment.
About
Lemon Way is a B2B payment service
provider for marketplaces. Lemon Way
is the partner of a changing world:
wedding gift on Internet, car sharing
instead of hiring, prepaid wallets
to replace my card, mobile remittance instead of cash to cash, bitcoins
instead of Swift.
@LemonWay

KLARNA NIKLAS ADALBERTH, CO-FOUNDER & DEPUTY CEO

ounded in 2005 Klarna offers

safe and easy-to-use payment
solutions. At the core of Klarnas
services is the concept of post-delivery payment, which lets buyers receive
ordered goods before any payment is
due. Today, Klarna has 850 employees, over 12 million customers and its
payment solutions are integrated by
more than 15,000 online shops. Klarna
has nine offices including development
in Israel. We have raised capital from
investors such as Sequoia Capital, DST,
General Atlantic and Atomico.

TWENTY

About
Klarna was founded in Stockholm,
Sweden with the idea of creating Online
payments as they should be, a hasslefree payment solution that would allow
buyers and sellers to interact in the
easiest and safest way. Klarna does this
by letting the customer pay after they
receive their order, and takes on the
credit and fraud risk for merchants. In
eight years, Klarna has grown to 850
employees, is active in seven countries in
Europe and has over 12 million consumers.
@Klarna @NiklasAdalberth

LINEDATA SERVICES SA
ANVARALY JIVA, FOUNDER
& CEO

he globalization and increasing

complexity of the financial
services industry are leading
firms to seek an IT partner which
is a specialist in their business and
committed to long-term investment and
support. With innovation at the very
heart of its strategy, Linedata experts
anticipate market trends and provide
a comprehensive range of services
from systems design, development
and integration through to support
and hosting. We work closely with a
number of technology, business and
financial services partners in order to
offer cutting-edge, open and flexible
platforms. Our employees are driven
by the success of our clients. Not only
are our solutions global and scalable,
they also cover the entire investment
and credit process value chain as a result
of a proven and industry-recognized
product strategy.
About
Linedata is a global solutions provider
dedicated to the investment management and credit community, with
1000 employees in 16 offices across
the globe. Headquartered in France,
Linedata applies its market and client
insight to provide innovative and
flexible mission-critical software and
services that help its clients grow in
over 50 countries.
@linedata

MBANK MICHAL PANOWICZ, SENIOR DIRECTOR

n 2013 mBank launched a project

to change the retail banking status
quo, as it did in 2000 by introducing the first Polish online bank.
Inspired by our customers adoption of
modern digital experiences across web
and mobile platforms we launched our
new online banking platform, delivering over 200 innovative features
grouped across 10 major innovation
areas, including fully authenticated
video banking, real-time event-driven
CRM, merchant-funded transactional
marketing, P2P payments through
Facebook & text messages.
We noticed that the interactive
capabilities of modern browsers,
smartphones and social media had all
become an important part of everyday life. Yet most banks lagged in
their wholehearted adoption, vastly

using old-fashioned tables instead of

more: approachable charts, interactive
elements, video streaming, contextual
data to present financial information.
mBank decided to fill in that gap with
its new online banking platform offering a fully digital experience.
About
mBank is the third-largest Polish
retail bank serving over 4.2m customers and offering an award-winning
next generation digital banking platform combining 10 major innovations
smoothly co-ordinated within transactional banking experience. The bank
fully leverages modern technologies
to deliver a state-of-the-art end-to-end
customer experience and unparalleled
sales effectiveness.
@mBankpl @michalpanowicz

TWENTY-ONE

FinTech50

MENIGA
GEORG LUDVIKSSON,
CO-FOUNDER & CEO

he traditional retail banking

business model is under
increasing pressure in a world
of accelerating technology change,
big data mining, deregulation,
dwindling loyalty and high consumer
expectations. The industry is ripe
for disruption with many tech-savvy,
VC-funded new entrants chipping
away at different parts of a retail
banks business. Banks must therefore
learn how to quickly adapt and
decide what role they want to play
in a changing world. To thrive, they
must embrace new ways and new
business models, such as becoming
a trusted guardian and adviser of
consumers in a much broader sense
than most banks are today. Meniga
operates at the heart of these changes
and is privileged to work with some of
Europes leading financial institutions
to help them map a course towards
the bank of the future. Helping both
banks and consumers in this way is an
extremely rewarding ride.
About
Meniga helps retail banks dramatically
improve their online and mobile
banking through innovative Personal
Finance Management (PFM) software
solutions. Meniga uses social curiosity,
humour and gamification to make
money management fun and engaging
(or less boring) and at the same time
helps banks better engage, analyze
and monetize their customers.
@meniga @georgl

TWENTY-TWO

FinTech50
FinTech50

MERIT SOFTWARE KERRIL BURKE, CO-FOUNDER & CEO

NAGRAID
CYRIL LALO, CEO

erit Softwares systems

allow investment banks
and financial institutions
to manage their receivables and
payables proactively across their
global organizations, by automating
the processing and settlement of
over 80% of operational transactions.
Claim Manager offers efficiency
savings of 50-60%. Looking forward,
we are particularly excited about
the introduction of SetClaim, our
new SaaS-based electronic matching
service which is expected to set the
new standard in centralised settlement
systems in this sector.
Our customer success is our
success and the benefits we deliver
in helping them process billions of
pounds worth of transactions will
lead to additional referred sales,
both within the same organization
or in other peer organizations. The

long standing nature of our clients is

testimony to this philosophy.
About
Merit software provides industry
leading
banking
and
broking
settlement processing solutions to the
global tier 1 investment banks and
major financial institutions, offering
efficiency savings of 50-60%. In the
2013 ISF Global Investor survey,
clients using the companys Claim
Manager software won the top three
places and were five of the top seven
in the Dividend and Income collection
category.
@MeritSoftwareUK

stablished in 1976, NagraID

joined the Kudelski Group
in 2001. With headquarters
located in La Chaux-de-Fonds
(Switzerland), the cradle of the worlds
watchmaking industry, NagraID has
continued the tradition of constant
development and miniaturisation of
electronic components and grown to
support the financial markets demand
for higher security.
NargaIDs patented production
methods enable us to embed
sophisticated electronic components
into a wide variety of forms. For our
customers, the variety of applications
range from electronic identification
cards (e-IDs) to bank cards, including
electronic transport passes and
tracking solutions for goods and
persons.
Our market segments include:
financial, transportation, healthcare,
logistics, industrial, access control,
government and secure identification
as well as loyalty and promotional
cards for the broader markets.
Thanks to a pioneering and innovative spirit, technological competence,
excellent product quality and positive customer response, NagraID now
enjoys a global presence.
@nidsecurity

NUTMEG NICK HUNGERFORD, CEO

eve had an explosive year,

with impressive growth in
client numbers, excellent
investment performance and a
constant stream of media attention.
But more importantly, its heartening
to see that were really making a
difference to peoples lives, genuinely
helping investors - whether they have
1,000 or 1m to invest - with their
investment goals.
Nutmeg is bringing investing
into the modern day by making
it
accessible,
transparent
and
straightforward. Were shaking up
the industry by combining the best
principles of investment management
with the latest innovations from the

world of technology and design.

2014 is set to be another great year
for Nutmeg and we look forward to
welcoming many more customers.
About
Nutmeg is an intelligent investment
management service. We provide to
savers with 1,000 the kind of expert
portfolio management that was
previously only available to those with
250,000-plus. Were transparent,
we keep costs low so our customers
benefit from improved net returns and
we speak in a language that makes
sense. Nutmeg is how investing should
be.
@thenutmegteam @nickhungerford
TWENTY-THREE

FinTech50

FinTech50

OP3NVOICE PAUL MURPHY, CO-FOUNDER & CEO

O
OPENGAMMA
KIRK WYLIE, CO-FOUNDER
& EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN

eve built a derivatives

risk management system
as powerful as anything
the big investment banks have, and
we give it away free under an Open
Source licence. While this may seem
counter-intuitive, its critical to ensuring our industry has the flexibility,
transparency, efficiency and diversity necessary for the post-Lehman
world. Adopters get the best of both
worlds: the power and transparency
they get from building from scratch,
with the cost savings of buying a
solution. Customers get access to the
people who wrote the system and the
commercial guarantees they need.
Regulators have confidence that risk is
being done using state of the art standard techniques. We think well make
the entire industry more stable, resilient, and efficient as a result.
About
OpenGamma was founded in 2009 to
develop an open platform for analytics and risk management for the
financial services industry. The OpenGamma Platform is provided under
an open-source licence and brings
a new standard of transparency to
the industry, enabling users to gain
more insight into their exposures and
respond faster to changing market
conditions.
@OpenGamma @kirkwy

TWENTY-FOUR

ur product, today, is an API to

enable search of the spoken
word. In the near future this
will surface many more layers of information such as emotions, objects,
volumes, colours and relationships.
Underlying the API is a suite of complex
technologies that transform raw data
into output useful to developers. After
all, capturing video and audio is easy.
Easier every day, in fact, but processing it in order to use it, is very difficult.
It requires a unique blend of skills and
know-how. Theres nothing else on the
market that enables this today, so most
businesses dont even consider doing
anything with their audio and video
recordings. Now they can.

About
OP3Nvoice makes sense of the spoken
word. Our API, SDKs and plugins
enable anyone to extract more knowledge from video and voice recordings.
The API is already being used by
disruptors, innovators and some of
the worlds largest institutions to
find emotions, meaning, context and
insights.
@OP3Nvoice

PAYMILL
MARK HENKEL,
CO-FOUNDER & CEO

eople like to shop anytime

and anywhere and merchants
like to offer their products and
services anytime and anywhere.
Providing simple and consistent
payment methods are some of the
biggest challenges merchants are faced
with - thats where PAYMILL works its
magic. Our role is to help e-commerce
businesses, start-ups and especially
SaaS businesses in Europe to accept
payments in an easy way. We clearly
know the pain points of merchants
with payments: onboarding, integration, support and we do everything
to help them making money. This has
made us quite successful for a young
company and 2013 was an extremely
outstanding year. The continuous
expansion reinforces our leading position in the European online payment
market advancing our goal to enable
everyone to make fast and transparent payments.
About
PAYMILL is a payment service provider
based in Munich. We support entrepreneurs and SMEs by allowing
them to add the ability to take online
payments very quickly and extremely
easily. Further advantages in addition
to the very simple API are the transparent price and the comprehensive
customer support.
@Paymill @mrkhnkl

PENSIONSFIRST ANALYTICS BENJAMIN REID, CEO

013 was another outstanding year for PensionsFirst.

We continued to see rapid
and broad adoption of PFaroe our
unique risk management software
highlighted by our expansion into the
US market through a strategic alliance
with Winklevoss Technologies. This
year will continue to see geographic
expansion in pensions and the launch
of PFaroe for the insurance market.
The increasing demand on managers of financial risk to demonstrate to
their stakeholders that they understand their risks and are taking
appropriate management actions
is generating increasing opportunities for PensionsFirst. As risk
managers demand more and more
comprehensive and up to date infor-

mation, PFaroes multi-faceted, SaaS

based risk analytics meet this demand
head on. Following a highly successful
2013, we are forecasting another year
of rapid growth in 2014.
About
PensionsFirst Analytics core product,
PFaroe,
provides
web-based,
intuitive and user-friendly risk
management analytics, delivering
users a greater understanding of their
risks and driving smarter decisions.
Initially targeted towards pensions,
it is currently used to analyze over
107bn of pension liabilities, PFaroe
is now expanding into other areas of
financial risk.
@PensionsFirst

TWENTY-FIVE

FinTech50
FinTech50

FinTech50

PINGIT
RUCHIR RODRIGUES, MD
OF UKRPB DIGITAL

e hear a lot about companies being innovative. To

most brands that means
being the biggest, the shiniest, the
most technologically intricate. To us
its just great ideas that deliver on our
promise. And that promise is to put
the customer at the heart of everything we do.

PERSEUS TELECOM DR. JOCK PERCY, CEO

ompanies are always looking

for ways to improve performance, be it in technology or in
policy. This effort is all about getting
to work on the research and developing an innovative yet strong plan
of execution. Four years ago, Andrew
Kusminsky and I heard a lot from financial firms about the challenges they
faced in getting more efficient and
lower-latency networks into distant
markets such as New York to London
across the Atlantic or New York to
Brazil down the Atlantic.
What we found is that it doesnt take
half a billion dollars to make trans-Atlantic connectivity faster, but rather
better R&D backed by a commitment
to bring innovation to market. By the
beginning of 2011, Perseus Telecom
was formed and had built QuanTA, the
fastest trans-Atlantic network connecting New York and London for financial
markets. We then went on to improve
the same type of connectivity from New
York to Brazil, London to Frankfurt and
on to 70+ markets around the world.
Our business model, which is core
to our operating philosophy, is how

TWENTY-SIX

Perseus has been successful in deploying winning networks for customers,

why we stand proud of our mantra to:
Simplify, Solve and Save.
About
Perseus Telecom is an award-winning
global facilities-based licensed carrier
of enterprise and telecommunications
services with a focus on ultra-low
latency global connectivity. Perseus
provides many of the worlds fastest
market-to-market routes between
Chicago, New York, London, Frankfurt, Brazil and Mexico. The company
was recently awarded for the fastest
trans-Atlantic route between New York
and London (QuanTA) and Brazil
and USA (LiquidPath). Perseus has
pioneered the fastest wireless microwave route between London and
Frankfurt in operation since October
2012 and just recently launched
a metro London wireless network
between financial markets.
@PerseusTelecom

About
Barclays Pingit continues our proud
history in payments innovation. We
produced the UKs first credit card,
the worlds first ATM and the UKs
first debit card. Were committed to
producing world-class digital services
that make our customers lives much
easier.
@BarclaysPingit

SEEDRS
JEFF LYNN, CEO

e provide the architecture and infrastructure for

private, early-stage investing throughout Europe. Crowdfunding
has become a popular term, but underlying it is a fundamental change in the
way people invest and businesses are
born. For investors, be they high-networth or mass affluent, we provide
the opportunity to allocate capital to
businesses they choose. And for entrepreneurs, we are a tool to raise and
aggregate capital from a wide group
of investors, all while facing a single
legal shareholder.
After our launch in July 2012, we
had an amazing year in 2013. We
funded 43 deals to the tune of over
4.5 million, with over 2.6 million
of that in Q4 alone. Were looking to
grow even faster in 2014.
About
Seedrs is one of the leading equity
crowdfunding platforms in the world.
We let anyone in Europe invest from
10 up in startups they choose
and we let startups from anywhere
in Europe raise capital from friends,
family, their communities, angels and
independent investorsall through a
simple online process.
@Seedrs @jeffseedrs

SMARTSTREAM PHILIPPE CHAMBADAL, CEO

ince acquiring SmartStream

in 2007 it has been a priority to develop products that
will transform the middle and back
office. One of the fundamental differentiating characteristics has been to
ensure that everything we develop
will operate cross-platform, across the
enterprise. With market-leading solutions such as our TLM Reconciliations
Premium, Data Management Services,
Cash and Liquidity Management and
Corporate Actions Processing, our
products are constantly evolving
to meet client, market and compliance requirements. SmartStream has
continued to grow, outpacing its rivals
and continually delivering innovative post-trade processing solutions.
This has been achieved through our
ongoing commitment to R&D which,
despite challenging market conditions, has never dropped below a
market-leading 20% of revenues. Over

the past six years, SmartStream has

grown to be one of the largest posttrade solution providers globally with
our software in over 70 of the top 100
banks in the world.
About
SmartStream delivers greater efficiency, automation and control to
critical post-trade operations including: Reference Data Operations, Trade
Process Management, Confirmations
and Reconciliation Management,
Corporate Actions Processing, Fees
and Invoice Management, Cash &
Liquidity Management and Compliance Solutions. Used independently
or as a suite of solutions and services,
clients gain a lower cost-per-transaction while reducing operational risk,
aiding compliance and improving
customer service levels.
@SmartStream_STP
TWENTY-SEVEN

FinTech50

SUSH.IO THOMAS GUILLAUMIN, CO-FOUNDER & CEO

believe that FinTech in Europe is

by far the most interesting industry for startups today. SEPA is a
great example of how fast environments change and we definitely feel
that new great European innovators
will appear in the next few years.
We travel a lot and believe that situation is the same everywhere. We
want mobile apps, one-click experiences, beautiful UIs but also fast
payments and transfers. Europe is
an amazing space to create an international business. Sush.io wants to
help entrepreneurs and SMBs run
their businesses better by focussing
on key financial analytics instead of
spending time on manual tasks and
paperwork.
TWENTY-EIGHT

About
Sush.io is the smart dashboard for
the SaaS Generation. Connect your
online accounts & business apps
in a single cloud. Automate tasks
and get instant reports about your
expenditure, sales & bank data.
Sush.io works with Barclays, Citybank, Stripe, Freshbooks, Google
Adwords, PayPal, Github, Amazon
Web Services and more than 400
services.
@sushio @tgparis

FinTech50

SYNERSCOPE
JAN-KEES BUENEN, CEO

TBRICKS
JONAS HANSBO, CEO

o everyone speaks about data

these days. We heard how it
could become the new oil,
how we need to master Big Data
in our enterprises, or risk withering
away against smarter competitors.
True or not, data is everywhere and
will further explode in the next
decades. Thats why so many believe
data scientists have the sexiest jobs
of the century. However, keeping a
technology accessible to super-specialists only is what we challenge.
Technology needs to become simpler
to use, just like anyone can drive a
car today, or operate a computer. The
SynerScope team answers to the call
to drive complex analytics the same
way. We build systems and tools so
anyone can perform complex data
analytics without demand for specialized math and data skills. We appeal
to the powers of your visual brain,
thus unlocking information from data
100-1000 times faster than classic
analytic workflows. Mass Data exploration becomes economically viable.
Our first mover industry is insurance,
where through claim analysis we help
improve margins by 3-4%.
About
SynerScope allows financial corporations to work with extremely fine
grained categorization of their customers for analysis while maintaining a
full overview. The system is both agile
and flexible as there is minimum data
modeling involved. Our technology
supports individual pricing strategy
and detailed behaviour monitoring
while operating at scale.
@synerscope @JKBuenen

he financial industry is undergoing massive changes and

trading is no exception. Innovation and legal requirements have
produced a complex and fragmented
liquidity landscape where traders now
need better technology to achieve high
quality, low-cost execution. Speed is
still critical, but flexibility and stability
are equally important. Tbricks offers
customers radically new ways to automate and adapt their trading to exploit
new opportunities. For us, 2013 was
a year of growth. We invested significantly in sales and marketing; we won
strategically important customers in
Europe and the US and we opened an
office in Chicago. We also introduced
a hosted version of our software,
Tbricks OnDemand, as an alternative to deployed software. We expect
continued growth going forward.
About
Tbricks provides the next-generation
trading system that puts the power in
the hands of the trader. Tbricks delivers an open, solid and very fast core
platform complemented by a rich
set of trading apps. Tbricks supports
premier trading and market-making institutions in Europe and North
America.

THE CURRENCY CLOUD MICHAEL LAVEN, CEO

013 was an incredible year. We

now process an annual rate
of $4bn payments through
our network, serving 350 business
customers, and 42,000+ active users.
Working with our customers and
partners we have been continuously
improving our product and expanding our reach. But we are not pausing
for breath; we are expecting 2014 to
be even bigger and better. You will
see announcements from us on our
investment situation, new product
enhancements, new markets and new
partnerships. Watch this space to see
how our innovation can reduce costs
and improve transparency for thousands of more people.

About
The Currency Cloud is transforming
the international payments landscape
by delivering currency conversion and
international payments as a cloudbased web service. We provide the
best pricing by connecting our clients
to numerous currency and payment
networks while maintaining the same
level of security, reliability and compliance as mainstream banks.
@currency_cloud @lavenmichael

TWENTY-NINE

FinTech50

FinTech50

TRANSFERWISE
TAAVET HINRIKUS, FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN

I
THUNDERHEAD.COM
GLEN MANCHESTER, CEO

recognized
technology
pioneer, innovator and entrepreneur with more than 20
years of global experience, Glen is
the founder and CEO of Thunderhead
renamed since May 17th, 2012 as
Thunderhead.com, a global provider
of cloud-based customer experience
and enterprise engagement solutions.
Today, Thunderhead.com employs
more than 300 people globally, has
180 enterprise customers predominantly in financial services, investment
banking (including 14 of the G15
global investment banks) and insurance, with a growing footprint in
public sector with US Federal Government and Australian Commonwealth.
About
Thunderhead.com is a global provider
of customer experience and enterprise
engagement solutions. Thunderhead.
com provides a powerful suite of SaaS
solutions that gives businesses the
ability to communicate, collaborate
and have real-time conversations with
their customers and partners across all
touchpoints throughout their journey.
The result is that businesses have
more power to drive revenue, brand
strength, and differentiation by delivering far beyond isolated interactions
and experiences but by creating the
rich relationships that great businesses are built on.

THIRTY

f you have a better way of doing

something, think about how it
could be applied to help others.
My friend Kristo Krmann and I
came up with the idea for TransferWise when we first became expats in
London and were confronted by the
high fees banks charge to transfer
money abroad. I was paid in euros,
but lived in London. Kristo worked
in London, but had a mortgage to
pay in Estonia. We devised a simple
plan: every month Kristo put pounds
in my bank account and I put euros in
Kristos account, avoiding bank fees.
Within a few months wed saved thousands of pounds and realised there
were probably millions of others that
needed a system like ours.

WONGA
ERROL DAMELIN,
FOUNDER &CEO

About
TransferWise is a peer-to-peer international money transfer platform that
uses technology developed by the
people who built Skype and PayPal to
remove all the fees the banking and
FX broking industry have kept hidden
for decades. Its new model is up to 10
times cheaper than using a bank.
@TransferWise @taavet

About
Wonga is the first British payday
lender to offer short-term credit
using fully automated risk processing technology. The initial product
was launched in October 2007 and
the firm was also the first to provide
an instant lending application for
unsecured personal loans online via
tablet and mobile applications. Mainstream banks and other lenders were
reportedly dismissive of Wongas plan
saying they would not be totally satisfied with customer identity without
physical documentation. But Wongas
innovative business model of lending
only to those who could pay back reliably - as opposed to the much wider
practice of payday loans - required an
algorithm that could fully determine
risk in an automated manner and
also get funds directly to customers
bank accounts as quickly as possible.
As a result Wonga has been disruptive
in the short-term credit industry by
providing transparency, exact control
of amount and payment date, immediate access to funds, and no faxing or
emailing documents.

ZOPA GILES ANDREWS, CO-FOUNDER & CEO

opa is all about rewarding

people who are good with
money and we do this by
having a more efficient online marketplace where over 45,000 savers lend
their money to over 50,000 sensible borrowers. Zopa provides an
inflation-beating alternative to the
poor savings rates offered by banks
and a much lower rate on loans for
borrowers. Zopa was the worlds first
peer-to-peer (P2P) lender launching
in 2005; it has since lent over 430m
and been replicated by numerous
companies globally. Zopa is seeing
200% year on year growth by disrupting the status quo of the UK financial
services industry and will break into
the mainstream during 2014, coinciding with being a regulated and future
ISA-accredited activity. Our business

model is driven by efficiency and

it is this that sets us apart from the
banks by allowing us to deliver better
rates and customer service directly to
consumers.
About
Zopa is the worlds first and UKs
leading peer-to-peer lending company
allowing people to bypass the banks
to get a better return on their savings
or a low-cost loan. Zopa matches
sensible borrowers with smart savers
looking for higher interest.
@Zopa @zopagiles

THIRTY-ONE

FinTech50

PREPARING FOR A NEW DATA SECURITY REGIME

FinTech50

UKTI & THE FINTECH SECTOR

Nigel Miller, Head of Technology, Fox Williams

Sue Langley, UKTI Financial Services Organization, Chief Executive

T
T

he EUs proposed new General Data Protection

Regulation expected to be adopted in 2014 and
to come into force two years later - will impact all
sectors but especially FinTech, where data security and
privacy are key issues.
Data protection laws have remained largely unchanged
since the EU Data Protection Directive in 1995. Not only
does the current law pre-date relatively recent developments
such as social media, mobile apps, cloud computing and big
data, it does not even contemplate mainstream Internet
technologies. The proposed new Regulation described
as one of the most lobbied pieces of European legislation
in history seeks to update data protection laws and to
harmonise them within the EU. It will apply not only to
organizations that are established in the EU, but also to those
outside the EU that target EU citizens either by offering them
goods and services, or by monitoring their behaviour.
Under the proposed new Regulation, data controllers
must implement appropriate technical and organizational
measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the
risks represented by the processing and the nature of the
personal data to be protected, having regard to the state-ofthe-art and the costs of their implementation. This reflects
the current requirement but is more wide-ranging in that
it specifically requires a data controller to carry out a data
security risk assessment in respect of every type of data
he holds. It also makes it clear that data security must be
treated as a dynamic concept and that security measures
must be kept in line with the state of the art.
Currently, save for certain communications service
providers, there is no legal obligation in the UK formally to
report a data security breach, although it is good practice
in certain situations. In the absence of a requirement to
notify a breach, fear of reputational damage means that
data breaches usually go unreported, depriving consumers
of the opportunity to protect their data and regulators of
the ability to take enforcement action. One of the more
controversial aspects of the proposed new Regulation is a
mandatory notification requirement in the event of a data
security breach. The new Regulation requires notification
to the national data protection regulator (the Information
Commissioner) without undue delay, which is presumed to

THIRTY-TWO

be not later than 72 hours. Where the data breach is likely

to result in identity theft or fraud, significant humiliation or
damage to reputation, it must also be notified to the data
subject without undue delay, unless you can demonstrate
that encryption or other technology rendered the data
unintelligible to third parties.
Data security is not just a technical issue, but is also an
organizational issue. Many data security breaches are simply
the result of human error or deliberate or innocent violation
of corporate security policies. The Regulation introduces
the concept of data protection by design. This requires
data protection to be embedded within the entire life cycle
of the technology, from early design stage through to its
ultimate deployment. It includes ensuring that managers
understand their privacy duties and communicate their
privacy policies across the organization, and establishing
rigorous compliance and enforcement mechanisms. While
data security breaches may not be completely avoidable,
regulatory enforcement action will typically follow where
a firm failed to have in place the appropriate policies and
procedures or to provide the staff training that may have
prevented the breach occurring.
Currently, the Information Commissioner can issue fines
of up to 500,000 for serious breaches of the Data Protection
Act. In the financial services sector, the Financial Conduct
Authority can issue more substantial fines. The proposed
new Regulation seriously ramps this up and provides for
substantial fines for non-compliance of up to 5% of annual
worldwide turnover or 100m, whichever is greater.
Leaving aside the increasing burden of regulation and the
seriousness of the sanctions for non-compliance, it makes
good business sense to build trust with your customers and
stakeholders as a firm which takes privacy and data security
issues seriously. FinTech businesses should not wait until the
new data protection laws come into force and should start to
implement data protection by design as well as new data
protection and security breach policies and procedures to
ensure compliance with the new requirements.
For more information on Privacy and Data Protection,
contact Nigel Miller at nmiller@foxwilliams.com or on
020-7614 2504.

here are a number of compelling reasons why financial services investors historically choose the UK.
Our business-friendly environment, highly skilled
workforce, competitive tax regime, global links, excellent
ICT infrastructure and supportive stance for innovation all
combine to make the UK a world class business location.
However we cannot be complacent. With well-established
and emerging financial centres elsewhere in the world
providing attractive support to their financial services
sectors, the UK has to remain ever vigilant to maintain its
competitive advantage and to stay one step ahead of the
game if it is to become the number one choice for investors.
As Chief Executive to the UK Governments newly
created UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) Financial Services
Organization my ambition is clear. To attract high value
investment into the UKs financial services sector; and to help
companies already here to export their services and to grow
their business overseas.
It is Governments responsibility to help create the
right conditions for a thriving financial technology sector
and, within that, the role of the UKTI Financial Services
Organization to work closely with industry partners to ensure
a co-ordinated and focussed approach to marketing the
UKs industries, thus playing a central role in attracting high
quality foreign direct investment to grow the UK economy.
And, once here, help support companies in expanding their
UK operations and increasing their trade overseas.
The industry is an emerging sector and has great potential
as FinTech increases in size and importance. According to
Frost and Sullivan, financial institutions in the UK spent
9bn on ICT in 2011 and the market is expected to grow to
approximately 10bn by 2016.
The role of technology is clear in the financial services
sector.
Technology is responsible for almost every integral
function in the UK insurance sector from underwriting to
risk management to customer relationship management.
Technological change has revolutionised the way financial
assets are traded and opportunities exist for technology
providers who can reduce transaction times.
The UK is one of Europes largest markets and leading
innovators in e-payments.
The UK is the second-largest data centre market in the
world, with 2012 investment valued at 2.08bn.
And, reductions in the cost of technology have lowered
the barrier to entry for financial services start-ups, presenting
opportunity for investment.
The UK is in a strong position to become a leading player
in the FinTech market, and at present is only second globally

to the US in terms of project investment.

In the last half decade Europe has attracted 25% of global
FinTech FDI projects, with the UK attracting the majority of
these. Last year FinTech projects, capital expenditure and
jobs into the UK rose significantly, suggesting that foreign
investors have growing confidence in the UK for this type
of investment.
Tech City in East London is the fastest growing tech hub
in Europe, hosting over 1,300 high tech companies. Its close
proximity to the City gives the UK an enviable position in
leading the way on financial technology.
The UK Government is committed to strengthening
the FinTech sector further through multiple investment
programmes. This includes the newly developed office
space at Level 39 which is aimed directly at the FinTech
Industry. The Canary Wharf area is already home to global
tech and media companies including Samsung, Ricoh UK,
Thomson Reuters, China Unicomm and others. Further plans
to develop Canary Wharf into a FinTech hub, to represent
the sector, include the Wood Wharf development. This
development will provide three million square feet of extra
office space in close proximity to Londons financial centre.
Companies carrying out R&D across the UK can also
benefit from a range of support packages. These include
R&D tax credits - the biggest single funding mechanism
provided by Government for investment in business R&D.
There is also SMART - a Technology Strategy Board
scheme offering funding to small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in the
strategically important areas of science, engineering and
technology, from which successful new products, processes
and services emerge.
Patents have a particularly strong link to on-going hightech R&D and manufacturing activity which the Government
sees as a priority to encourage in the UK. The Government
initiative, Patent Box, aims to encourage companies to
locate the high-value jobs and activity associated with the
development, manufacture and exploitation of patents in the
UK. It also aims to enhance the competitiveness of the UK
tax system for high-tech companies that obtain profits from
patents.
These are just some of the ways that the UK Government
is working to create a business environment conducive to a
strong FinTech sector.
The UKTI Financial Services Organization will be doing
all it can to support that, working in partnership with other
associations and with a real focus in 2014 to help the UKs
FinTech sector go from strength to strength.

THIRTY-THREE

FinTech50

A BREAKTHROUGH
YEAR FOR FINTECH
Alan Bristow, CEO of international tech M&A business, ICON Corporate Finance, in conversation
with award-winning journalist Brian Bollen

ALAN BRISTOW, CEO

ICON CORPORATE FINANCE

firmly believe that 2014 will be a breakthrough year for

the financial technology (FinTech) industry in the UK. I
am also confident that by the end of the year many of the
companies in the FinTech50 that are still relatively unknown

THIRTY-FOUR

will have become major players in the market.

Despite strong global competition, London is still the
leading hub in the international financial services sector.
Today it is home to some of the worlds leading Investment
Banks and Financial Institutions; it is also home to many of
the worlds leading software engineers, exceptionally talented
individuals and teams intent on identifying problems in the
industry, creating new solutions, seizing opportunities and
generating profit.
The fallout from the credit crisis, and the loss of confidence
in banks, has seen a swathe of innovative new entrants arrive
in the FinTech market; looking to disrupt traditional business
models in financial services these companies are creating huge
opportunities for growth at a time when the international
M&A market is extremely vibrant.
In the 15 years since the founding of ICON I have never
known a more exciting time for companies to be competing in
the FinTech space. In the last 12 months the FinTech Software
& Services Index grew by 38% (compared to only 17% for the
S&P 500) and M&A activity in the FinTech space continues to
reach new heights with the total value of deals growing by
24% to $18.5bn.

FinTech50

The most successful FinTech companies continue to achieve

super premiums from buyers, due to the significant market
opportunity and strong recurring revenue models. FfastFill,
for example, the leading SaaS Provider for trading and risk
management serving the electronic trading community, was
acquired by ION Trading. Digital Insight, which creates online

The most successful

FinTech companies
continue to achieve
super premiums
from buyers
banking and mobile banking innovations proven to help banks
and credit unions connect with customers and grow, has been
acquired by NCR for $1.6bn, which also recently acquired
Alaric Systems for $84m.
Having sold FinTech companies since 1999, ICON has seen
at first hand why buyers are attracted to businesses in this
space. The most sought-after share a number of characteristics.
They operate in large and growing global markets. They are
world class in their niche. They have attractive underlying
business models with strong recurring revenues and have
a demonstrable opportunity to drive top line growth with
world class management teams. Overall, they have strategic
relevance to the buyer.
A classic example of the London FinTech effect is the
business my-Channels; originally founded by a team of
developers who came out of Deutsche Bank, today its
messaging platform Nirvana is used by the worlds leading
Investment Banks and runs over 40% of the worlds foreign
exchange trades. Its no surprise that this FinTech business
was acquired by the German IT giant, Software AG. It is this
ability - as demonstrated by the my-Channels team - to identify
a disruptive market opportunity and develop the best product
or market-leading solution that makes todays FinTech players
so attractive to a cross-section of potential investors and big
acquirers.
We expect a new wave of pioneers to follow the trail
blazed also by the likes of Monitise plc. Now a world leader
in mobile money - banking, paying and buying with a mobile
device - Monitise was founded only in 2003 by Alastair Lukies.
It provides services to more than 350 financial institutions and
other leading brands globally, and has 24m users. It boasts
strategic partnerships with Visa Inc, Visa Europe, RBS Group,

Telefnica Digital and FIS and already processes three billion

mobile transactions annually to the value of $50bn.
The climate for FinTech exits has been improving
consistently and we expect that trend to continue in 2014
as the economic outlook brightens. We expect Trade Sales to
account for the vast majority of future exits rather than stock
market Flotations.
Venture Capitalists and Private Equity firms are other likely
buyers. Although new buyout activity in 2013 was below that
seen in 2012, the private equity industry ended 2013 with a
record $1.074tn of dry powder (capital committed but not
yet invested).
In 2013, more venture capital was invested in European
companies than in any other year since 2007. The 6.3bn
($8.3bn) is a significant increase on the 4.6bn ($5.9bn)
invested throughout 2012, and is a clear indicator that
significant growth and confidence is returning to the continent.
The unstoppable explosion of digital data is creating a new
future. A new era of wealth creation lies in wait for those with
disruptive know-how, acute vision, focussed determination
and tailored funding.
Those FinTech companies who time and manage their exit
well will undoubtedly secure excellent valuations for their
business and add to the success stories of the worlds greatest
financial centre.
Alan Bristow can be contacted at ICON Corporate Finance via
email: alan@iconcorpfin.co.uk @iconcorpfin
www.iconcorpfin.co.uk

Many of the FinTech 50 companies

demonstrate the qualities that convince
global FinTech acquirers to pay a super
premium

1. Large and growing international markets

2. Disruptive and best in class
3. Attractive business model with strong
recurring revenues

4. Demonstrable
line growth

opportunity to drive top

5. World class management teams

6. Unquantified strategic relevance
buyer

to the

THIRTY-FIVE

FinTech50

WHY LONDON IS A CENTRE FOR FINTECH

INNOVATION

FinTech50

SHOW AND TELL: BUILDING REPUTATION

THROUGH THE POWER OF STORYTELLING
Claudia Bate, Associate Director and head of Hotwires Financial Services
and Corporate Communications practice

Alex McCrakcen, Silicon Valley Bank, Director, Venture Services and Origination

F
F

inancial technologies are big news in London. Of

the $11bn invested in FinTech worldwide in 2012,
around $3bn was invested in the UK. Two thirds of
this ($1.8bn) was earmarked for London-based FinTech
businesses. Despite having a population that is one fifth the
size of the US, investment in UK FinTech is half that of the
US, which means that the UK, and London in particular,
is really punching above its weight in the global FinTech
innovation arena.
In the global FinTech market, electronic and mobile
cash sees most of the investment activity, driven by the
rapid growth in smartphones, tablets and mobile commerce
transactions. According to reports by Forrester Research
Ltd, global purchases over mobile will reach $1tn by 2017,
leading to the rise of hundreds of mobile money payments
and transfer solutions and technologies. Over 30m people
in Europe are expected to move to mobile banking over the
next few years, leading to the rise of new authentication and
security solutions, and the gradual disappearance of banks
high street branches.
FinTech is of course a broad eco-system, and other
subsectors benefiting from increased funding activity
include E-Money, Peer-to-Peer lending (P2P), FX, Payments,
and Challenger Banks (of which Silicon Valley Bank is one)
which are being set up as an alternative to the traditional
high street incumbents. We only have to look at the range
of sectors represented by the 50 hot FinTech businesses
featured in this booklet to see that the UK and Europe are
producing FinTech businesses of global significance across
the board.
With payments and FX transactions worth billions of

THIRTY-SIX

dollars flowing through banks and Financial Services

businesses worldwide on a daily basis, we expect the majority
of disruption and innovation to come within the payments
sector. Finech businesses should be mindful of the challenges
of globalization - especially security, with the rise of global
cyber-hacking, and the demands of stringent rregulatory
requirements. Keeping pace with regulatory changes across
global markets is essential for any FinTech business wishing
to grow while remaining compliant.
The transition towards ever faster, cross-border micropayments driven by m-commerce will push financial services
businesses to adapt and transform their technology systems.
It is pleasing to see FinTech businesses developing solutions to help existing banks adapt to meet modern demand.
Financial Services businesses must remain agile in adopting
new technologies if they wish to survive. The days of large
financial services businesses having a one size fits all
policy and developing in-house systems are over. Instead,
to avoid going out of business, banks must be able to make
changes rapidly by partnering with or acquiring new FinTech
businesses. At Silicon Valley Bank, we fully recognise the
importance of this and are proud to work with a wide range
of innovative businesses within the FinTech space, by providing funding and banking services, and also adopting their
new technologies. We are delighted to support the FinTech
community in the UK, and look forward to being part of the
FinTech City innovation happening here in London.
Alex McCracken is Director, Venture Services and Origination
at Silicon Valley Banks UK Branch.
amccracken@svb.com

ew can deny that the wave of FinTech innovation that

recently rolled across the financial services landscape
has fundamentally reshaped the industry. With the
democratization of peer-to-peer lending and funding, new
payment and financial engineering solutions, and the rollout
of every financial app you can think of, new behaviours and
expectations have been generated amongst business and
consumer clients. Financial institutions and banks have
found their seemingly safe market share under threat, yet
surprisingly, have not always been quick to react. Perhaps
this is because, as well as driving innovation in the industry,
the disruptive new companies that joined the financial
community have also significantly altered the incumbent
model for stakeholder communications. Moving away from a
tightly prescriptive focus on telling customers and prospects
about services available, these firms have reintroduced the
venerable concept of storytelling, and have used narrative to
communicate their values and the benefits their technologies
can provide.
As they have taken on the challenge of encouraging
businesses (not always an audience open to change) to think
differently about their financial tools and move away from
the familiar, disruptive FinTech firms have used sophisticated
storytelling techniques to build audience engagement to their
advantage. A focus on emotions, benefits and transparency,
supported by personal testimony from company founders,
has fostered a new wave of openness and inclusiveness in
the industry. Today, the gauntlet has been thrown down whether you are an industry institution with decades of
experience or a young startup targeting strong growth - you
need a compelling narrative to compete and win.
This new way of communicating is a major break
with the past for the financial sectors. Many banks and
financial institutions have viewed bland press releases
and pre-approved executive interviews with traditional
media as the best communication tools, ensuring full
control of messaging and impact. As many companies have
struggled with the public perception of their businesses,
due to regulatory and financial scandals, this may be

understandable. However, in todays dynamic FinTech

environment, it feels hopelessly out of date.
In comparison, technology firms have proved quick
to reform their communications, following the tech bust
in 2000 and a wave of cynicism from investors and the
general public. For years, these companies focused the
communications on touting new innovative features,
insisting that technology could do it harder, better, faster,
stronger. As such, they tended to overpromise on the impact
of technology and in the end underdeliver in real benefits
to the end user. Investors pulled out and the general public
began to see technology as Frankensteins creature, all
features and improvements, but no soul within. In recent
years, however, communications have been wrested away
from features-fixated engineers, and have incorporated new
narratives of business benefits and industry change.
Given this brave new world of communications, FinTech
innovators are in a unique position to build and communicate a story, influencing how the market perceives them
and their technology. By explaining where an idea or service
has come from, showing the genesis and the person behind
a concept, and by demonstrating how new technologies
and innovations can change the way businesses work and
succeed, a FinTech firm can engage with their audience on
an emotional level. Whether the target is an investor they
wish to bring on board, or businesses they want to download the latest app or gadget, by showing them the journey,
an innovator can gain buy-in and build excitement in their
offering.
In addition, FinTech firms can also take advantage of
multiple communication channels to spread the word,
increasing audience reach and amplifying the power of their
narrative. From blogs and forums, through to social media
outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, a firm can provide its
audience with access to multiple viewpoints of the company
and its technology. As an audience is engaged and better
understands the power of a companys ideas, they may even
join in for the ride, becoming a powerful echo chamber for
the companys story.
THIRTY-SEVEN

FinTech50

SYMBIOTIC FINTECH
Greg Rogers, Techstars, Managing Director

spent the last 10 years as an advertising technology

entrepreneur in New York City. During that decade,
I witnessed two things happen. New York became
the Silicon Valley of the east coast, and AdTech radically
transformed the marketing and advertising industry. It
made sense that the two would be catalysts for their
transformations. New York is home to the major media
companies and agencies of the United States. The sheer
concentration of talent and experience there converged with
the opportunity of digital and data. In other words, the right
people were in the right place at the right time.
I now run the Barclays Accelerator here in London.
Why would an AdTech guy from New York run a financial
technology accelerator in London? Investors talk about
pattern recognition when judging startup opportunities.
What they mean is that history often repeats itself, just in a
different guise. My investment thesis is that London is going
to become the Silicon Valley of Europe and that FinTech will
be its catalyst. While this transformation may take 10 years,
for those of us who will be in the midst of it, the rate of
technological change will be nothing short of breathtaking.
According to Business Insider, by the end of 2013, global
smartphone penetration will have exploded from 5% of the
global population in 2009, to 22%. Thats an increase of
nearly 1.3bn smartphones in just four years. When you
combine the convenience of a computer in everyones pocket
with the sheer quantity of data being collected digitally, every
aspect of financial services can and likely will be disrupted
from payments to currency to loans and credit. Nothing
will be left unscathed.
However, financial services are regulated and as such, the

THIRTY-EIGHT

relationship between the finance startup (the disruptor)

and finance stalwart (the disrupted) is very different from
other industries. As Houston Frost in Pando Daily noted in his
excellent article Too Small to Fail, often it is an established
financial institution that enables a startup to provide its
new, cutting-edge services. He writes, even large payment
startups like Square, ISIS, and Google Wallet, require not
only financial institution partnerships but also partnerships
with big processors like Fiserv.
This symbiotic relationship between FinTech startups and
established banks is what makes the new Barclays Accelerator
so relevant. Ten startups will be given unprecedented access
to APIs, senior management, and global exposure to help
them build their businesses. Rather than fighting disruption,
Barclays is going to accelerate it. Big banks cannot possibly
take the same level of risk as startups. So the idea is to
fuel an eco-system of innovation to which Barclays can be a
partner on multiple levels.
As the finance capital of Europe, if not the world, London
is poised to take advantage of not just the rise in accelerators
but also structural changes. From investor tax incentives
to strong governmental support to growth in the venture
capital base, I believe we are witnessing a city and economy
that is bringing together the right people at the right time. I
look forward to being a part of the transformation.
Applications for the Barclays Accelerator are now open till
March 31, 2014. You can read more and apply through the
website www.barclaysaccelerator.com.
Greg Rogers is a Managing Director at Techstars that powers
the Barclays Accelerator.

Hotwire is an integrated PR and communications

agency working with the worlds most ambitious
high growth tech businesses. Our global team
is dedicated to finding new ways to improve the
impact and efficiency of our clients
communications with influencers and stakeholders.
Since launching in 2000, weve emerged as one of
the fastest growing international communications
consultancies in the world.
We are the global alternative an agile and
innovative challenger to the established order.

@hotwirepr
www.hotwirepr.com

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