Swift expands Innotribe to emerging markets, adds Industry Challenge
Vandenreydt: worry less about disruption and recognise that innovation is positive
Swift’s Innotribe initiative is to expand its programme to support innovation in emerging fintech ecosystems, including Africa and Latin America.
It has also announced a new Industry Challenge programme under which the Innotribe team will work with Swift members to identify business areas that could benefit from collaborative solutions. As a part of this, Innotribe will organise business-specific challenges and bring Swift member institutions and internal teams together with solution providers and a hand-picked group of FinTech start-ups to “deeply explore potential opportunities for select business areas” and work on proof of concepts that might turn into tangible solutions.
Next year In 2016, the Startup Challenge will focus on supporting emerging FinTech ecosystems, concentrating its efforts in Africa and Latin America. For the second consecutive year, Innotribe will partner with the Swift African Regional Conference to tap into the potential of African start-ups. For Latin America, Innotribe will also use a similar Swift regional event to harness the innovation happening on the ground in that market.
Launched in 2009, Innotribe was created to identify emerging trends in financial services innovation and generate discussions about how these trends could impact the industry going forward.
The Startup Challenge was launched in 2011 with a mission “to bring visibility to activities at the edges of our ecosystem, highlighting the importance of these new emerging companies called startups and their revolutionary way to think and work”. It has evolved into one of the leading global start-up competitions, connecting the financial services industry with more than 650 fintech start-ups around the world and reaching over 4,000 audience members through global showcases and networking events.
“The growth of Innotribe’s scope and outreach over the last few years is impressive,” said Fabian Vandenreydt, global head of securities, Innotribe and the Swift Institute at Swift. “As Innotribe grows deeper into Swift’s core, it proves innovation is not an afterthought but a real component of business architecture. We need to worry less about disruption and recognise that innovation, in the meaning of adopting a new approach to an existing process or developing a new product, is positive for the industry.”
