FinLeap at Fintech Week Hamburg
Between October 10th and 14th in Hamburg, approximately 2000 key players from the Fintech and banking industry came together to discuss new financial trends: it was Fintech Week! The event combined close to 20 events ranging from a breakfast to a conference that presented many exciting speeches and great network opportunities. Of course, FinLeap took the chance to participate at several of the events. Have a read!
The Bankathon – Code through the night
The highlight of the first day was the start of Bankathon – a coding conference that took place for the third time. This year’s event had a specific topic – PSD2 (a regulations that opens up banking data and services to third parties). 22 teams developed ideas in a fierce competition which will culminate on Day 2 with a presentation in front of a jury. FinLeap sent in a team with four members: Emilio De Lazzari, Roxane Zankel, Hyeona Yang, and Martin Held. On Sunday, the team began brainstorming ideas and came up with a solution that makes splitting expenses between friends easier: an app called Splitit. Splitit offers a smart way to share expenses with friends, by doing the pay-back job for their customers. Whenever a customer wants to split expenses, doesn’t matter if its for an online purchase, event tickets or a dinner, Splitit will not only save all of the details, but also process the necessary transactions for you. Splitit allows users to notify all friends with whom a bill was split with at the same time. The people owing money receive the reimbursement requests via push notification and can accept the payment with one click and one fingerprint-scan only. The owed money is then directly transferred to the bank account of the person to whom the money is owed to. Splitit stands out from other payback services, because it captures the transactions directly from its customer’s bank account and makes sure that the initiators get their money back as soon as possible by withdrawing the requested amounts from their friends’ accounts.
(A picture of FinLeap’s project for Bankathon)
The finale of the Bankathon took place the second day of the Fintech Week. 21 ideas developed in 48 hours were presented in front of 200+ spectators. FinLeap’s team also presented their idea and although they did not win, everyone agreed on how inspiring it was to experience the development an idea that equally fascinated the whole team into a working prototype in such a short time. The first place was awarded to Intrabase while the second to FinTracer and the third to Stockbattle. Congratulations to the winners!
The betahaus breakfast – presentation meets brötchen
The betahaus Hamburg, the meeting point for the digital scene, was also one of the main venues for the Fintech Week. One of the regular events is the betahaus breakfast, where start-ups present their ideas and companies. FinLeap’s MD Carolin Gabor was ready to present. The place was fully booked and the vibe great. Besides presenting FinLeap and it’s various ventures, Carolin also spoke about the Fintech Ladies Europe initiative, a network for women in Fintech. Fintech Week also interviewed Carolin on her vision for Fintech, you can read it here.
The day continued with some Network of the fastest growing technology companies and a BlockChain event.
The Career Day – find your new job
Anyone interested in working in Fintech? Then the career day on Day 4 of the Fintech Week was the right place to be. From 9am to 5pm, the event took place at betahaus Hamburg, inviting all interested in a career in Fintech to network. FinLeap was represented by Selcuk Kuram, Director Group Development, who was discussing with the audience what people in Fintech need. Besides the many reasons, why Fintechs can offer the same services that banks do, Selcuk also pointed out the advantages to found a fintech with a company builder like FinLeap. FinLeap currently offers 87 open job positions.
The last day of Fintech Week Hamburg included a Fintech Safari through Hamburg’s Fintech scene and comdirect Finanzbarcamp where industry experts discussed the future of banking. The week finished with a closing event and a Finance Blog award for which ten nominees competed.