Accenture’s FinTech Innovation Lab London has chosen 20 innovative startups from more than 300 FinTech firms around the globe, which will represent the biggest programme in the London Lab’s five-year history.
According to an Accenture press release, this year’s programme also received an increased interest from startups located in the Middle East, Turkey, Russia, the Nordics, and North America.
Launched in 2012 by Accenture, the FinTech Innovation Lab London, which is in collaboration with the U.K.’s leading financial service institutions, angel investors, and venture capital firms, is one of four other FinTech Labs. The others are the Accenture and the Partnership Fund for New York City, the Asia-Pacific Lab in Hong Kong and an Innovation Lab in Dublin. Collectively, the Labs have raised over $386 million of funding and helped to create more than 625 startup jobs.
During the 12-week programme, startups will join up with senior bank and insurance executives with the task of mentoring them around several startup challenges such as legal, pitching, and running proof of concepts in financial organizations. They will also help to fine-tune and develop their technologies and business models.
There are 28 mentors from financial institutions in the program including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Nationwide, OP Financial Group, Liverpool Victoria, Rabobank, and Towergate.
Tom Graham, programme director of Accenture’s FinTech Innovation Lab London, said:
Innovation must continue. The FinTech Innovation Lab London is helping startups forge ties to thrive at home and abroad. This opportunity offers light-bulb moments to banks and insurers with exciting innovations that can help make financial services work better for consumers and the broader economy.
Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Personal and Corporate Banking at Barclays, said:
The FinTech Innovation Lab London brings together disruptive innovators, corporates, resources and support networks to accelerate the speed of innovation and is an important initiative to help shape the future of our industry.
The 20 startup taking part this year are broken up into four different areas: Corporate and Investment Banking, Retail Banking, Insurance, and Tech4Tech.
Accenture Comes Under Fire
Last year, Accenture came under fire after announcing that it had filed a patent for a prototype that would permit changes to be made to the blockchain under ‘exceptional circumstances.’
The announcement produced mixed reviews from both side with Richard Lumb, global head of financial services at consultancy firm Accenture, stating that while the permanence of the blockchain has been vital in building trust among the people who use it, its usefulness can be limited in financial services.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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