BeFinnovative: At the centre of the innovation actions of National Bank of Greece and Greek Fintech!
Source: https://startupper.gr/ , article by George Kourkoutas
After my visit to BeFinnovative Fintech Accelerator, I will once again repeat the common observation that the Greek Startups ecosystem is maturing rapidly! Although the State does not seem to have developed any strategic plan yet, Greek banks have realised that innovation is vital to their future as well as the services that we will all use.
Eurobank with its program Egg, National Bank of Greece with BeFinnovative and Alpha Bank with its recent Hackathon seem to go beyond the rationale of CSR actions and “invest” to innovation centres leading to a two-way relationship between Startups and the “traditional” banking organizations.
On the one hand, Startups benefit from what is provided by each program either to launch their business quickly or to scaleup, and, on the other hand, banks get access to innovation and new technologies that are necessary for their digitization.
For instance, BeFinnovative Accelerator of the National Bank of Greece was launched in September 2016, in collaboration with CrowdPolicy. At the same time, the bank started to refine the necessary APIs in order to support and develop the new Fintech services, either internally or by third parties in accordance with the EU regulation PSD2.
Konstantinos Kalogerakis, the coordinator of the program, showed us around the new upgraded venues of BeFinnovative located in the impressive building of Piraeus Street, which in essence “stepped” on a former branch of the Bank.
“We believe that the six-month business acceleration program BeFinnovative, like the hackathons organized by the National Bank of Greece in collaboration with Crowdpolicy, have significantly contributed to the evolution of the fintech ecosystem in Greece. The fact that remarkable teams are participating in the second cycle of the program is particularly pleasing and we are considering the possibility of cooperation with some of them, “ Konstantinos Kalogerakis stated.
Eight teams with interesting ideas are participating in the second cycle while the first cycle was completed with the Demo Day in April 2017. Of the nine teams that took part in the first cycle, six have progressed and are developing, and National Bank of Greece is interested in using their services and selected ideas (both from the first and the second cycle).
In addition, National Bank of Greece held its second internal innovation competition entitled “Idea”, where about 100 ideas were submitted! The top 10 ideas will be selected and the winner will be announced on the Demo Day of the second cycle.
BeFinnovative offers business and technology consultancy by experienced executives, bootcamps for developing special skills, improving ideas with the use of lean development methodologies, developing MVPs and prototypes, and collaborating with mentors, businesses and accelerators from abroad.
Moreover, the program provides the participants with additional resources, such as cloud services and cash prizes based on their performance in the program (this year the 1st and 2nd team will share € 10,000).
The teams of the 2nd cycle of BeFinnovative
Community Energy River: the interesting project of Maya Andreou is to create a platform for energy data analysis and support the production and exchange of energy by local communities.
Game On: the team of Christos Kontos aims to create a social network around sporting events with the implementation of electronic payments. The platform is expected to be released in spring.
Kalepso: the Startup of Giorgos Kellaris and Giorgos Depastas has developed a “military class” digital data capture technology on cloud that was “born” at Harvard.
Plustic: the team of Dimitris Lambrou and Haris Tsiliakoudis has created a mobile platform and application to manage customer reward cards for both companies and consumers.
QuRabbit: the team of Evangelos Frangou, Giorgos Mayshmaz, Kostas Banakakis and Kostas Kehagias has built a platform for online purchases through QR Codes.
Rattle: The team of the students of the Technical University, which consists of Ioannis Daras, Marilena Economopoulou, Marios Papachristou and Mary Pareli, was distinguished at the recent Hackathon of National Bank of Greece with their idea of automated purchase of products from stores without having to pay at the cash desk.
Swap It: The team of Domenicos and Spiros Lagos has attracted the interest of the Bank as it offers a loan exchange platform and, therefore, real estate, which can adrress the issue of red loans.
Multisignio: the new team of Alexandros Papageorgiou took the place of the team Omniscient and has developed a “unified” wallet for cryptocurrency that reduces the cost of managing cryptocurrencies and facilitates their integration and especially their use by individuals and companies.
