China Merchants Bank Joins R3 Blockchain Consortium
Add another Asia-based #bank to R3’s growing roster.
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13 Hottest Finance And Fintech Startups in Europe 2016
WIRED Magazine has recently published a list of Europe&8217;s 100 Hottest Startups 2016. The list consists various #startups in e-commerce, #finance, AI, App, Mobile, Recruitment, etc. from #hottest cities such as London, Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Barcelona… Out of 100 startups, 13 startups in #Fintech and Finance have made the list.
LONDON, UK
Property Partner &8211; Property Crowdfunding & Investment
Property Partner combines residential real estate crowdfunding with a secondary exchange upon which investors can trade their holdings. The company allows anyone to invest in an individual property of their choice, with as little or as much they wish, so they can own a share, receive rental income and access capital growth. Property Partner is the trading name of London House Exchange Limited, a company that is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Osper &8211; The Prepaid Debit Card for Kids 8-18
The branchless bank offers debit cards for 8-to 18 years-olds. Children can manage spending with an accompanying smartphone app, and parents can use the app to monitor spending and transfer (or withhold) pocket money. Founded by Alick Varma in 2012, the company is backed by Horizons Ventures and an array of entrepreneurs, including Samir Desai of Funding Circle
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
Qapital introduces a fun, automated way of saving money for specific goals. The totally free iPhone app is designed to help anyone reach savings targets by setting goals and applying rules to automate the saving. Qapital uses “If This Then That” IFTTT triggers to create a gamified savings system for millennials. Rules can be as simple as rounding up to the nearest dollar on everyday expenses or as interesting as rewarding yourself if you do certain things
AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
BUX &8211; Casual Stock Trading
BUX wants to make everyone a stock trader. Released in 2014, its app combines &8220;virtua-money trading and a community&8221;, according to CEO Nick Bortot. It allows potentials investors to practise with digital currency before they spend real-world fund, with alerts sent when prices start to rapidly drop. Bortot claims the app has 450,000 registered users and is available in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and the UK. Further European expansion is planned for the 31 people team.
HELSINKI, FINLAND
Moni &8211; Banking In Your Pocket
Founded by Basemotion mastermind Antti Pennanen, this fintech startup offer prepaid MasterCards so travellers can pay without charges, and a money-transfer app that allows interest-free loans between friends. Its profile soared in February #2016 when the Finnish immigration service announced it would use to make payments to some of Finland’s 50,000 refugees.
LISBON, PORTUGAL
CrowdProcess is a scientific computing company that owns James, an R&D tool used by many #banks to manage risk. James helps risk officers in banks manage risk better, reduce default rates and improve origination practices, using advanced scientific computing capabilities, including machine learning and advanced optimization. The company, founded in 2011 by CEO Pedro Fonseca, Sam Hopkins, and works with hedge funds based in New York and London.
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
A marketing tool that provides predictive algorithms for online businesses, Insider launched in 2012 and has 90 employees in 5 countries. &8220;There are personalisation tools which allow online businesses to create special content for each users. However, there are manual and integration takes ages,&8221; says co-founder and CEO Hande Cilingir. Insider‘s tools segment audiences automatically, for a monthly fee.
AloTech &8211; A Cloud Company
For companies running a call center operation that are frustrated with the high cost, complexity and difficulty of the conventional systems, AloTech is the web based, pay-as-you-go solution running on Google, which is low cost, fast, easy, scalable and with complete enterprise functionality able to be setup anywhere in the world in 10 minutes.
Parasut &8211; Financial Management Software for SMEs
The bookkeeping cloud platform made our 2015 list and has since doubled its customer base to 2,500. &8220;We signed a partnership agreement with Akbank, one of the largest banks&8221;, says co-founder Sean Yu. &8220;We&8217;ll integrate our application directly to online banking to enable seamless syncing of transaction data, make payments for invoices and payroll in-app, provide invoice factoring, credit and loans and other products in-app.&8221;
iyzico &8211; Virtual POS Service
TPayment platform iyzico has grown significantly since 2014. In 2015, it raised $ 6.2 million and entered the $ 400 billion Iranian market. It has more than 29,000 registered merchants (up from 3,000 in 2014) and has seen a 50% increase in the average number of transactions year on year. &8220;I am aiming to get as many smart and driven people as possible together, who will help us to become the payment champion of the Orient,&8221; says Marketing Manager a da Enen.
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
FundBox – Fundbox: Overcome Cash Flow Gaps
Fundbox is a #technology company focusing on helping small business owners overcome occasional short-term cash flow gaps. Founded in 2013, the service uses big data analytics, engineering, and predictive modeling to help optimize cash flow for small businesses and freelancers with outstanding invoices. The company already raised $ 112.5 million from investors including Jeff Bezos and Ashton Kutcher.
By giving people the ability to exchange digital cash directly with one another Colu is creating a new way of thinking about money that encourages sustainable and equitable economic growth while supporting local businesses. Colu wants to digitalise ownership of real-world items &8211; from cars to concert tickets &8211; using the #blockchain. Founded in 2014, the company has raised $ 2.5 million in seed funding led by Aleph Venture Capital. It has partnered with Deloitte and is collaborating with Barbados-based startup to introduce a #Bitcoin-based &8220;Caribean dollar&8221;
BARCELONA, SPAIN
Kantox: Currency and Risk Management Solutions
Kantox is a foreign exchange service provider, offering SMEs and mid-cap companies a comprehensive solution to their foreign exchange needs, based on transparency, efficiency and value. Their transactions reached $ 1 billion, broke the $ 3 billion barrier in April 2016. It completed an $ 11 million funding round from Partech Venture, IDinvest Partner and Cabiedes & Partners in May2015, and released new software this year which automates FX transactions and payments.
The post 13 Hottest Finance And Fintech Startups in Europe 2016 appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
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XBRL to Flatten Information Asymmetries in the Small Business Lending Market
There is simply nothing more frustrating than trying to communicate with someone when neither of you speak the same language. Having just returned from a holiday in Morocco, I found myself in this exact situation on more than one occasion. Luckily, when English wasn’t an option, my schoolgirl French was often able to bridgeRead More
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The Fed Launches a Facebook Page — and Out Come the Trolls
France has one. Germany and England, too. Wasn’t it time for the central bank of the United States to launch its own #Facebook #page? Yes, indeed-y. The Federal Reserve Board introduced its new social media effort this month “with the aim of increasing the accessibility and availability of Federal ReserveRead More
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Plug and Play’s Biggest Blockchain Batch Plans Big Bank Collaborations
Meet the eight #blockchain startups that were recently accepted into storied Silicon Valley accelerator #Plug and Play’s fourth #FinTech #batch.
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Kimberley Process Inches Closer to ‘Blood Diamond’ Blockchain
A global tracking scheme for conflict diamonds is continuing its internal #blockchain trials, according to a new report.
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Visa Incubator to Test Blockchain for Interbank Payments
#Visa’s London-based innovation lab has announced its latest #blockchain trial will focus on #interbank #payments.
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Visa Europe, BTL Group Partner To Test Blockchain Settlement
It was announced today that #Visa #Europe Collab, part of Visa Inc, will be partnering with the world’s first publicly listed #blockchain company, the BTL #Group, in order to #test out a proof of concept on running interbank settlements through blockchain. Backed by Visa, which has been exploring the potential applicationsRead More
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Startup of the Month: Lykke, a Next-Gen Zero-Commission Trading Platform Powered by Blockchain
#Bitcoin and #blockchain #technology has gotten a major boost in Switzerland as Richard Olsen, the co-founder of OANDA and a former CEO of the North American FX Brokerage, is looking to harness the power of the technology to disrupt digital currencies and assets #trading.
Lykke, Olsen’s latest venture, has just released a mobile app for Android devices, which follows its iOS counterpart released in June. The #Lykke Wallet lets users trade digital currencies and assets, and come with a number of innovative features including instant settlement, direct ownership and zero commission.
Through the app, users can track asset prices in real time, check their balances, transaction history and blockchain details for all transactions, move assets to any bitcoin wallet, deposit and withdraw bitcoins via QR codes with no fees.
“Lykke Wallet, currently in beta, aims to prove the concepts and the technology behind the new global marketplace,” Olsen said in a media release.
Signing up to Lykke is quite simple: you can use your smartphone camera to take pictures of yourself and your identification documents.
Lykke&8217;s technology
Founded in Zurich in 2015, Lykke aims at cutting out intermediaries in financial markets by allowing participants to transact in a peer-to-peer manner.
It uses a technology called ‘colored coins;&8217; tokens that represent assets. &8220;If a colored coin is hacked, the issuer can cancel the colored coin and issue a new colored coin,&8221; explained Olsen in a recent interview with Finance Magnates.
Another interesting feature is the #platform&8217;s use of multisignature (multisig) wallets, which require two signatures (one from Lykke, one from the client) to spend funds from a particular wallet.
The Lykke Exchange itself doesn&8217;t take custody of client funds but also holds one of the two needed private keys. If, for some reason, the Lykke Exchange goes down, there is a &8220;refund mechanism&8221; for the private key held by the company.
&8220;We have solved the cyber security issue that plagues bitcoin exchanges and offer restitution, which is more efficient than a depositor insurance scheme in #banks that is limited to specified amount of money,&8221; Olsen said.
Lykke is building a global marketplace where users would be able to trade all classes of financial instruments issued in the form of colored coins in order to enable direct ownership and immediate settlement on the blockchain.
In May 2016, Lykke closed a second seed funding round, welcoming new investors Marco Brockhaus and Carlo Koelzer, founding partner of 360T&8217;s Group Executive Board and member of Deutsche Börse Group Management Committee.
That same #month, the company announced the addition of Nick Szabo, a Bitcoin pioneer, into its Advisory Board.
Lykke is currently on an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) which it plans to begin in September.
&8220;Blockchain is an opportunity for all businesses – literally all businesses can embrace the technology and seize the opportunities, such as issuance of new instruments, explosive growth of transaction volumes, new types of banking, investment management and insurance products – these markets have huge potential,&8221; Olsen said.
&8220;Companies that close their eyes to the new opportunities are at risk – they will be latecomers and will have to restructure, when revenues nosedive – a bad environment to embrace new business models.&8221;
The post Startup of the Month: Lykke, a Next-Gen Zero-Commission Trading Platform Powered by Blockchain appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
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Can Crowdfunding Work in Art Investment?
By now, #crowdfunding is just another #investment tool — like any other, it has its benefits and disadvantages as a source of capital. But the concept of allowing for individual investors of all experience levels has proven its worth, especially as #fintech integrates with other industries: like the art world,Read More
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