The top 5 new Taiwanese startup team led by the FinTechBase joining the world’s largest Fintech accelerator Startupbootcamp (SBC) Demo Day to attracting Asia Pacific businesses’ attention for the first time
Date: 2016/07/22
Caption: The FSC supervises the TFSR-managed Fintech Development Fund and appoints the III's DATA Research Institute to operate the FinTechBase initiative and related training programs. Led by Dr. Warren Chen, III CTO and head of the DATA Research Institute (sixth from the left in second row), the training team joined the financial institutions on the visit to Singapore. Presentations were made on SBC Demo Day and received much attention from more than six hundred Fintech executives from Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and other Asia Pacific countries.
The FinTechBase startup has launched its first overseas tour! Since its creation in April, the FinTechBase has been working hard to build an international network for Fintech startups. The FinTechBase was invited to Demo Day, an annual convention hosted by the world's largest Fintech startup accelerator Startupbootcamp (SBC), taking place between July 13 and 16. The FinTechBase was joined by TWSE, TAIFEX, TPEx, TDCC, and eleven of Taiwan's largest banks including Bank of Taiwan, E.Sun FHC, SinoPac Holdings, and CTBC Bank. It also took five new Taiwanese startup teams seeking to break into other markets, including Fugle, Trading Valley, and StarsTech. The FinTechBase is SBC's first regional strategic partner in Asia Pacific and the only Fintech accelerator from Asia Pacific invited to the event. There was a lot of attention from more than six hundred Fintech executives from Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and other Asia Pacific countries.
For the purpose of facilitating transformations in Taiwan's financial sector and injecting fresh energy into Fintech startups, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has instructed the Taiwan Financial Services Roundtable (TFSR) to create a Fintech Development Fund, and appointed the III's Data Analytics Technology & Applications (DATA) Research Institute to serve as a startup accelerator and provide training. The FinTechBase initiative was created in April 2016 as a result. Following the establishment of the FinTechBase initiative in April, the III has quickly selected the first team of 15 Fintech incubators in June to help Fintech startups break into niche markets around the world. Furthermore, III took representatives of Taiwan's financial institutions and startups to Singapore to experience the Fintech craze firsthand and to participate in a variety of startup community events. In addition to listening to pitches from SBC startups, the III also arranged for Taiwan's startups to pitch to Singapore's international venture capital firms and Fintech professionals and to receive one-on-one counseling on market development in order to evaluate local services and opportunities for individual pitches. The goal was to enable Taiwan's Fintech startups to quickly grow local startups into global businesses.
Taiwan's Fintech mission explored opportunities of working with different international accelerators by meeting with several Singaporean Fintech accelerators in various fields. These accelerators included FinLab, which was sponsored by United Overseas Bank, Singapore's third largest bank, Income, which was Singapore's largest insurance company, and Velocity, which was a startup accelerator in Asia Pacific. The mission and the accelerators shared their experiences and engaged in business discussions. During the meeting, the Singaporean accelerators and startups expressed not only praise for Taiwan's Fintech startups, but also interest in helping individual teams break into regional markets in Asia Pacific.
This mission was the first of its kind as it consisted of domestic financial institutions and startup teams. The list of financial institutions included TWSE, TAIFEX, TPEx, TDCC, and NCCC as well as eleven domestic firms including the Bankers Association and the Non-Life Insurance Association of the R.O.C. The list of startups included Fugle, Trading Valley, StarsTech, Anyong Fintech, and Jinxiangdai. The mission gave the financial institutions that had little experience with the startup model and innovative services an opportunity to experience the startup culture in Singapore and interact with Taiwan's creative startups. The financial institutions were also given a crash course on the nature of Fintech, which should make Taiwan's financial institutions more willing to work with Fintech firms to achieve mutual benefits. The first stop was an unadulterated success.
The organizers from the FinTechBase stated that the visit to SBC Demo Day in Singapore opened their eyes to the large variety of startup services. Fintech innovations could be found in areas such as credit checks, payments, insurance, cross border foreign exchange, wealth management, and market information. In particular, cross border foreign exchange and wealth management attracted a lot of attention from Singaporean venture capital firms as there was a demand in these two niche markets in capitalist Singapore. While there are many similar opportunities in Taiwan in areas such as cross border foreign exchange, wealth management, and insurance, Taiwan's Fintech teams tend to focus on robo-advisors, mobile robo-advisors, and wealth management.
The mission also visited Infocomm Investments Pte Ltd (IIPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), and its BASH initiative, a collaboration space created for startups. In addition, the mission visited FinLab, a startup accelerator established by United Overseas Bank, Singapore, and witnessed how a state-owned enterprise in Singapore teamed up with organizations in the private sector to create a standard platform. Operations would be integrated in this space, effectively injecting resources from different partners and external sources into startups working in the facility. The thing about the model is that multiple accelerators can be integrated in this collaboration space. The practice reduces idle time and operating costs and improves exchange and synergy between accelerators at the same time. The success provides an excellent example for Taiwan.
The FinTechBase said face-to-face exchanges with Kashmi, a local P2P mobile payment startup, and venture capital firms gave the team a better understanding of the opportunities in regional Fintech markets in Asia Pacific. In addition to learning from the development of the Fintech network in Singapore, the mission had an even more important task, which was to help Taiwan's startups keep up with opportunities in regional Fintech markets in Asia Pacific and analyze keys to related applications that might translate to opportunities in Taiwan's Fintech service industry.
For details on the FinTechBase and the application procedure for startup support, please visit the FinTechBase website at http://fintechbase.com.tw/ or call Ms Lin at 02-6607-2759.
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