The contest participants are young companies engaged in financial technologies.
Earlier, the contest jury, which included representatives of TechHub and Rietumu Bank as well as well-known consultants, coaches and experts in the fintech area, determined 6 finalists of the Rietumu FinTech Challenge – EcomCharge, Mintos, Monea, Swipe, WealthArc, Wizard.Finance and ZenFinTech.
Yesterday the winner of the contest was acknowledged to be a project of mutual crediting Mintos, which allows free mutual cooperation between potential investors who can offer funds and those who need to borrow. The Mintos project was awarded a prize of EUR 5000 from the general partner of the contest – Rietumu Bank.
“The industry of financial technologies in Latvia has excellent potential. This contest has shown once again how many talented and purposeful people we have – all projects that were presented were interesting and well prepared.
As a developing and technological bank, we are interested in cooperation with innovative companies and are ready to provide them with our support. At this contest, Rietumu Bank and the Processing Centre DECTA, established by us, announced a special programme, which anticipates very good conditions for Baltic startups operating in the field of technologies and finances. For example, the transactional services during the first year of operation are provided to them for free,” noted the Member of the Board of Rietumu Bank Renal Lokomet.
The final stage of the Rietumu FinTech Challenge by TechHub Academy was held in two stages. In the first stage the finalists met mentors and coaches of the project and received consultations on business development. In the second stage young entrepreneurs presented their projects to the jury to select the winner.
The contest organiser is the startup incubator TechHub Riga. Alongside Rietumu Bank, its partners are Microsoft and the Association “Latvian Business Angel Network”.
“TechHub Riga has been supporting startups for three years. We see how the finance industry is changing and the FinTech area is becoming an increasingly more popular trend for startups. Therefore, together with Rietumu Bank, we decided to organise the contest Rietumu FinTech Challenge by TechHub Academy to provide an opportunity for startups to make a statement about themselves. We are glad that many applications were submitted for the contest. Each of the startups is good in their own way and I sincerely wish them every success in their development in the future,” said Director of TechHub Riga Maris Dagis.