The 9th BankTech Asia to showcase solutions from five fintech firms

The event will be held in Kuala Lumpur from July 5 to 6.

Powered by Matchi, BankTech Asia recently launched the Fin5ive Challenge to source five groundbreaking fintech solutions to showcase at the 9th BankTech Asia conference and exhibition in Kuala Lumpur from 5th to 6th July 2017.

“We’ve been running BankTech Asia for 9 years in Kuala Lumpur, and we are increasingly seeing banks being more open to collaborating with fintech companies and we’ve also observed fintech firms from around the world finding the Malaysian market more appealing as evidenced by an increased number of applications this year,” said Vincent Fong, General Manager Knowledge Group who are the organisers behind the long running BankTech Asia Conference series.

He then added “These shifting trends are precisely the reason why we’ve collaborated with a global fintech matchmaking firm like Matchi.”

The organisers stressed that relevance to the Asian market was key to this challenge. In preparation for the BankTech Asia Fin5ive Challenge, a fintech survey which comprised 70 participating financial institutions from the Asia Pacific region was launched to identify the key pain points. The survey responses were then collated to determine focus areas which formed the entry categories for the challenge.

To ensure the market relevance of the winning solutions, BankTech Asia also enlisted the expertise of a panel of industry experts to join the judging panel. This year’s panel includes major banks and well-known venture capitalists from the around the region: Amran Hassan, Head of Innovation at Maybank in Malaysia, Paolo Baltao, Senior Vice President at Union Bank in Philippines, Markus Gnirck, Co-Founder and Partner at tryb Capital in Singapore as well as Paul Ark, Managing Director for Corporate Venture Capital, Digital Ventures in Thailand.

“We’re very thankful for the support from our partner Matchi and our panel of judges for providing market insights and identifying fintech firms that are truly innovative and relevant to the Asian market,” added Vincent Fong, General Manager Knowledge Group.

From the many responders that entered the challenge, only 60+ fintech firms were shortlisted and the best-of-the-best were picked for the respective categories by analysts from Matchi, BankTech Asia and the panel of judges. The organisers noted that applications were received from around the globe including cities such as California, Johannesburg, Sydney, Malaysia, India, Switzerland, Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong - indicating a strong interest in Malaysia’s vibrant market.

The BankTech Asia Fin5ive 2017 winners are:

Theme: Financial Inclusion
Winner: Big Data Scoring, London

Theme: Mobile/Channel
Winner: Suitebox, Australia

Theme: Process Automation
Winner: Luminous, South Africa

Theme: Payments
Winner: Alpha Payments Cloud, Ireland

Theme: Security
Winner: ThreatMark, Czech Republic

In addition to a 10-minute lightning demo in front of 200+ participating bankers, the BankTech Asia Fin5ive winners will each be showcased in a special exhibition area throughout the conference where they are expected to be a highlight for the 500+ trade visitors attending the event.

The awards ceremony will be held on the first day of BankTech Asia which is on the 5th July 2017. The organisers confirmed that the Deputy Finance Minister I, YB Dato' Othman bin Aziz will be handing out the awards to the winner to during the event.

The organisers hope that through this challenge, more collaboration between bankers and disruptors can be established to lead the way to a much more robust financial services sector.