In the second version of what seemingly will be an annual event, Worldline, a payments company based in France, hosted this referenced hackathon event in Germany back in September. Although the Finextra article does not go into detail about the actual 15 challenges posted by the participating entities, one can review summary versions on the Worldline site.
It is interesting to note that a majority of these challenges were either directly or indirectly related to and applicable for B2B (or corporate) use cases. This is not something one would have expected just a couple of years ago. The level of knowledge and sophistication in the fintech entrepreneurial and developer world vis-à-vis corporate payments and other B2B scenarios has increased substantially.
This is partially due to PSD2 in Europe and general open banking initiatives globally, but also a recognition that the humongous corporate payments space is where a lot of the need (and money) remains. We have been pointing out this expected turn of events now for several years through reports and various other channels.
‘The e-Payments Challenge is an open exchange forum which brings together Fintech start-ups, with Worldline customers and its own experts for 3 intense days of co-creation. 25 Fintech startups competed mid-September in Frankfurt on 15 challenges set by 11 clients to design solutions using Worldline assets….The results give evidence of the effectiveness of Worldline’s unique co-creation recipe: the hands-on interaction in the triangle of competing Fintech teams, senior representatives from some of the most established industry players such as Accor, Erste Bank and OP finance, and Worldline’s own experts demonstrating the technology on site secured high-quality solutions.’
In terms of the winners, the ‘grand prize’ went to a startup called OneVisage for digital identity theft and another special award went to CloudAsset for a unique in-store app for card issuance.
We assume that either/both have applications across several use cases.
‘ the grand jury selected OneVisage, a Swiss startup which aims to become a leading digital identity service provider, for the “Grand Prix” award. Their smart solution helps prevent digital identity theft. Christophe Remillet, CEO of OneVisage : “Our vision is to disrupt the payments industry by introducing 3D facial biometric solutions that consumers can totally control…”.….‘A special prize was given to Cloudasset, a Finnish Fintech startup and their digital payment platform – P3, for their truly digital “In-Store Instant cards Issuing In-App”, based on a challenge set by a large European bank. Their solution digitizes the flow of finance for very unique customer requirements, in this case an instant in-app credit card issuance service that enables consumers from a specific segment to make credit-based purchases at partner merchants in less than a minute.’
There are other accelerators out there, and it’s good to see an increasing focus on corporate and enterprise solutions.
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
