On 14 March the Dolder Grand in Zurich will be the hotspot of the Swiss finance and fintech industry. The day starts with a conference and ends with the Swiss Fintech Awards Night. For this year’s Swiss Fintech Awards, the jury assessed 70 start-ups out of which they selected ten companies for the shortlist. After a two-day bootcamp four finalists have now been chosen. These include:
Category “Early Stage Startup of the Year”
Apiax (ZH): The number of regulations is increasing every day. Banks have to spend billions for fines and penalties. Apiax wants to change that with a platform transforming complex regulations into digital compliance rules, which are constantly up-to-date and verified, accessible via an API. The company has already won clients such as EY and plans to expand now to other European countries.
Traxia (ZG): There are over $43 trillion of invoices sitting in companies' balance sheets waiting to be paid. LiqEase powered by the Zug-based Traxia foundation allows those short-term assets to be digitized, tokenized and ultimately to be tradeable in a decentralized market. The goal of the marketplace is to make this asset class easier accessible for institutional investors. In 2019, LiqEase plans to process loans of more than $100 million.
Category “Growth Stage Startup of the Year”:
Crypto Finance AG (ZG) – is a blockchain company that offers investors access to the crypto market and blockchain-related services through its three divisions Crypto Fund, Crypto Broker and Crypto Storage. The group wants to become the outsourcing partner for banks for digital assets. The biggest milestone of the company so far is the FINMA license which the start-up received in October 2018.
Sonect (ZH) – developed a solution that converts shops into "Virtual ATM" to reduce the cost of cash. Individuals can withdraw money from any registered store using the Sonect app, banks save money in running their ATM operations. Sonect has launched its solution 18 month ago and is already the largest ATM provider in Switzerland. In addition, the start-up is working with leading European bank and prepares the expansion to other countries.
Fintech Conference – highlights for start-ups
Before the award night the Fintech conference will take place. The motto of the event is “Beyond Banking”. Questions such as has Blockchain technology really improved banking? Are customers more satisfied with financial services today than before the Fintech Bonanza? And has the financial sector learned enough from developments in other industries such as e-commerce or social media? will be discussed.
Among the speakers are representatives of challenger banks and tech companies such as Facebook as well as managers of Credit Suisse who will speak about the new CHF30 million fintech fund of the bank and collaborations with start-ups. In addition, the conference offers excellent networking opportunities for start-ups.
Startups can benefit from discounted tickets. More information on the website of the conference and the award night.