Member Article

Eight FinTech startups are now working with Barclays after impressing on its accelerator programme

The fourth Barclays Accelerator has now reached its conclusion and eight of the 11 participating FinTech firms are celebrating after entering into formal partnerships with the bank.

Revealed today at its recently opened trendy FinTech co-working space, Rise London in Shoreditch, the 11 startups expanded on their business propositions to an audience of financiers, venture capitalists and executives.

Formed as part of Barclays’ attempts to harness and capitalise on the innovative energies in the FinTech sphere, its accelerator, which is held in conjunction with Techstars, provides support and mentoring services to participating startups as well as giving them access to the bank’s data APIs.

Michael Harte, Barclays Group Head of Innovation, said: “By partnering with FinTech startups, and companies like Techstars through Rise, we have been able to deliver increased value to our customers and clients by developing products and services that best meet their changing needs.

“We look forward to continuing to work with this talented cohort in order to drive new value and change both within Barclays, and the financial services industry as a whole.”

The exact details of all eight partnerships has not be revealed, but Barclays has highlighted the work four of the chosen startups, including three who hail from London, will be working on with the financial giant.

These include London-based digital receipts business Flux, which will develop a pilot offering 10,000 Barclays customers access to their receipts within the Barclays app.

Intelligent simulations business Simudyne, which is also based out of the capital, will work with the bank to developing strategic simulations to help Barclays’ risk team with its risk decisions, while real-time fraud detection firm Barac will work with the bank to help predict fraud and outages across its UK and international business.

Finally, Munich-based Alyne will also work with the bank to identify ways it can use its control data to better adapt to regulatory changes and challenges.

Chris Adelsbach, Managing Director of Techstars said that the strength of the latest cohort showed why the Barclays accelerator in London is one of the ‘preeminent FinTech accelerators’ in the world.

He said: “FinTech is an exciting vertical for us. These companies are using technology to solve large real world problems that impact so many of us. I’m excited by their prospects and look forward to supporting them on their journey.”

Barclays also used the event to announce that it had created its first spin-out company after one of its internal teams founded Nivo, a secure mobile messaging platform which the bank will pilot with Barclays Premier.