Eight startups showcased at Accenture Asia Pacific FinTech Innovation Lab Investor Day

Baozou Review : The third Asia-Pacific Fintech Innovation Lab Investor Day was held in Hong Kong, and eight top start-ups demonstrated their products and services. This project was founded by Accenture Consulting in June 2014. It is a 12-week mentoring training program that allows start-ups to meet investors and high-tech talents, thereby promoting the two-way development of business and technology.

Translation: spring_zqy

Eight Asia-Pacific FinTech Innovation Lab startups debut at Hong Kong Cyberport Investor Day

——Project participants include ChartIQ, HedgeSPA, KYC-Chain Lattice, Privé Managers, Seerene, Siork and TNG Wallet

Asia Pacific Fintech Funding Activity Map

HONG KONG (BUSINESS WIRE) -- A select group of leading financial services technology (Fintech) companies showcased their products and services to a panel of major banks, venture capital firms and technology executives at the third annual FinTech Innovation Lab Asia Pacific Investor Day today.

The FinTech Innovation Lab was founded by Accenture Consulting in June 2014. It is a 12-week mentoring training camp program in the Asia-Pacific region that brings together start-ups with decision makers from the world's leading financial institutions to promote FinTech innovation and increase employment of high-tech talents.

“The Investor Day has been very popular in Hong Kong because it showcases best practice, where the financial services industry is working together with Accenture and the government to encourage startups to explore new solutions to the challenges facing the industry,” said Nicholas Yang, Secretary for Innovation and Technology of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. “As the development of fintech in Asia Pacific continues to grow, we are very happy to lead this collaboration.”

In the first three quarters of 2016, fintech investment in the Asia-Pacific region reached nearly $10.5 billion, with most of the funded companies coming from Greater China. This is more than Europe and the United States, where investment was $2 billion and the United States, where investment totaled $6 billion during the same period.

“We are seeing more financial institutions willing to work with fintech startups to help solve new challenges, from better adoption of blockchain technology to maximizing IT efficiency,” said Jon Allaway, senior managing director of Accenture’s Financial Services practice and executive sponsor of the Fintech Lab in Asia Pacific. “The startups we are seeing now generally have banking experience and understand the future development prospects of banks, or they believe that the current user experience needs to change and they are willing to make changes. It is their passion and keen observation of specific areas that enable them to master expertise and increase their value to financial services companies.”

The eight companies in this year's lab were selected by senior technology executives from financial institutions. They spent 12 weeks receiving intensive mentorship and product and business development advice, and had the opportunity to interact with senior financial industry, technology and venture capital executives. The 12 major financial institutions include: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, Generali Group, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Maybank, Morgan Stanley, Sun Life Financial Group, and UBS. In addition, the supporting banks include: China CITIC Bank International, China Construction Bank (Asia), Macquarie Group, Nomura Securities, Standard Chartered Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, Societe Generale, and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG).

Startups have developed a range of innovative products - from financial management solutions for customer investments, customer knowledge (KYC) services using blockchain technology, and anti-fraud solutions using Chinese algorithms to help financial institutions identify risks. These startups include: ChartIQ - provides financial charts and data visualization products specifically for securities on HTML5. This startup based in Charlottesville, Virginia has offices in New York, London, Cyprus and other places, and has more than 125 customers worldwide. Its time-series-based chart solution provides visual charts and data for investment banks, brokerages, trading platforms and financial portals, achieving a leap from legacy technology to the future of HTML5.

HedgeSPA - is a predictive investment analysis platform that allows investment professionals to use the Internet to improve performance. With offices in Singapore and California, HedgeSPA uses big data technology to screen assets. Combined with future market scenarios, it reduces 75% of low-level investments and automates daily portfolio management. Users can compete for cloud-based investment analysis, which was previously closed and expensive.

KYC-Chain - uses biometrics, emerging technologies and distributed ledger (blockchain) technology to simplify the process and provide consensus for identity verification. KYC-Chain allows front-line sales and compliance departments to continuously interact with retailers and other financial institutions in a secure, user-centric, encrypted environment at a lower cost. The platform developed by this Singaporean company is already online and in production at several banks.

Lattice – Develops portfolio support software for investors, investment managers, risk managers and traders. Based in Hong Kong, the platform includes a browse-based portfolio optimizer and flexible portfolio analytics to provide investors with evidence to make quick and concise decisions. The platform can help examine and accurately manipulate intentional or unintentional exposure to commodities, currencies, sectors and even countries. If a real investment goal is established, Lattice’s EPD will deliver a “one-click” balanced portfolio.

Privé Managers - is a fully integrated and comprehensive wealth and asset management platform that runs on a patented Bionic Advisory Engine. This Hong Kong-based startup's platform is already used by several large international financial institutions in Asia and Europe. Its modular solution meets the needs of various financial intermediaries and advisory firms to increase assets more efficiently and reduce costs through technology.

Seerene - Provides insights, actionable analytics and transparency to improve efficiency and save costs. Based in Berlin with offices in Hong Kong and New York, Seerene connects existing data sources to the enterprise, collects information and provides a technology they call "X-ray View" that can be accessed and browsed on a dashboard. Seerene controls the dollar effect of various technical debts, digital transformation and changes to all software stacks, teams and technologies. Its purpose is to help CIOs and IT executives improve efficiency and save costs.

SIORK - Helps financial institutions evaluate customer data and detect crimes such as fraud and money laundering in developed and emerging markets. SIORK is located in Tokyo, Japan, and has offices in Taiwan and the United States. Its products can automatically learn customer behavior, identify suspicious activities, and provide customers with real-time transaction closure mechanisms to prevent crimes. The product is unique because it uses a full set of Chinese character fuzzy matching algorithms combined with artificial intelligence learning capabilities to help global financial institutions analyze original data recorded in Chinese characters, such as customer names and other scattered information.

TNG Wallet - provides electronic wallet payment methods for fund transfers between merchants and individuals, global payments, mobile phone card top-ups, foreign exchange transactions, and cash withdrawals throughout the year. TNG Wallet has been downloaded 370,000 times through top-up points at convenience stores, ATM terminals, credit cards and various online banking platforms. Merchants can use this to obtain non-intake payment options within their affordability due to its low processing fees, thereby improving cash flow with the help of TNG high-speed settlement, and it is also a good customer relationship management tool to promote further communication and docking between merchants and consumers.

Herman Lam, CEO of Cyberport, announced during the conference that they will expand their collaboration with Accenture and continue the bootcamp program here for the next three years.

Lam said:

"Hong Kong Cyberport and Accenture have been working together since 2014 to promote this mentor training camp program for fintech startups. In the past few years, we have entered a new stage. In Cyberport, we only talk about fintech, and we want to increase our research efforts in fintech across Greater China. We will take the lead in promoting the development of new businesses in Hong Kong."

The model of the Asia-Pacific FinTech Innovation Lab is similar to the cooperation project established by Accenture with the New York Partnership Foundation in 2010, when the New York Partnership provided an investment of US$150 million. In 2012, with the support of the mayor and other government departments, Accenture and dozens of large banks in London opened the London FinTech Innovation Lab. In 2014, Accenture launched FinTech Innovation Labs in Asia-Pacific, Dublin and Ireland.

Globally, companies involved in the lab have raised more than $386 million since completing the program. Four companies from the New York FinTech Innovation Lab have been acquired, including two in 2015, including Standard Treasury and BillGuard.