Winners of European FinTech Awards 2016 announced
Fintech Industry in Europe has been growing and Amsterdam in Netherlands has hosted the European FinTech Awards 2016. In this awards 9 European FinTech businesses win awards in various FinTech categories.
Behaviosec won the Best European FinTech Company 2016. Behaviosec is a Fintech company that provides a layer of security that lets your customers authenticate themselves through the unique ways they type, swipe and hold their devices.
The financial world is on the move. In a recent study by IT specialist Everest, 42 percent of consumers said that they feel like a number with financial institutions and almost half (47%) find that their interests are not put in first place by banks and insurers. The growing needs of consumers for a positive customer experience are leading to innovation in the financial sector like never before.
FinTech is increasingly playing a role in this changed landscape. The recent FinTech Adoption Index from EY, which offered insight into the degree to which FinTech is being adopted, clearly showed that 15.5 percent of ‘digitally active’ consumers have tested and used at least two FinTech products in the past six months. That percentage will probably double in the coming year.
Investments in FinTech are also growing rapidly. It appeared recently from the Pulse of Fintech, a study by CB Insights and KPMG, that the investments by private equity parties in FinTech in 2015 worldwide had risen to record heights. In total in 2015, venture capitalists invested an amount of 13.8 billion dollars in FinTech. This is around twice as much as in 2014. Banks are more and more operating together with FinTech parties to arrive at hybrid solutions. The European FinTech Awards recognise the fact that FinTech has meanwhile become a mature and irreversible phenomenon.
European FinTech Awards & Conference
The European FinTech Awards & Conference ) took place on Thursday 14 April, a day on which innovation and disruption in the financial sector were discussed. All domains of financial innovation were discussed using pitches, demos and panel discussions. ABN AMRO CEO, Gerrit Zalm, was one of the many speakers.
The European FinTech Awards 2016 recognise the innovative performance that FinTech businesses are delivering. In addition, the Awards bring innovative start-ups, international FinTech investors, companies, experts and board members of established European financial institutions together to stimulate, upscale and accelerate innovation.
One element of the European FinTech Awards are the European FinTech 100 – 100 innovative companies with ground-breaking ideas and technologies – who entered into battle during the conference to take home one of the much-coveted European FinTech Awards 2016. These 100 companies have demonstrated that the financial sector can become many times more efficient, smarter and more innovative. The jury was especially impressed by the level of innovation and the growth potential of these prestigious FinTech companies.
At the end of the programme, the winners of the European FinTech Awards in various categories were announced.
Behaviosec is the winner of the award for the Best European FinTech Company 2016. Winners in the 9 sub-categories are: Monese, Funding Circle, Ebury, Wikifolio, Everledger, Kreditech, Knip, Backbase and Behaviosec.
The process
Ahead of the conference, the potential winners had already been chosen from a selection of more than 400 promising European FinTech companies. From this rough selection emerged the European FinTech 100, an ultimate shortlist of the best European FinTech businesses on the market at the moment. More than 60,000 online voters and a specialised jury then defined which potential winners would be allowed to pitch during the European FinTech Awards & Conference on 14 April. The jury picked the winners based on those pitches.
