National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia’s central securities depository, has taken part in judging the results of the Innotribe Startup Challenge which took place as part of the International Financial Congress (IFC) in St. Petersburg (Russia).
Launched by SWIFT in 2011, the Innotribe Startup Challenge has become one of the leading global startup competitions, helping participants reach the professional community of financial markets.
In 2017, the Startup Challenge is being held in Russia for the first time. It is supported by the Bank of Russia. Ten Fintech startups from Russia and CIS countries presented their products and solutions. All were selected by international experts and participated in a special accelerator program.
National Settlement Depository was the partner of the project. Sergey Putyatinskiy, the Company’s IT Director, was involved in all stages of the Startup Challenge: from the preliminary selection of applications and the accelerator program to attending the participants’ final pitches at IFC.
Sergey Putyatinskiy, IT Director, NSD, said: “NSD, as financial infrastructure, pays special attention to innovations which may influence the financial industry’s future. It is important for us not just to take part in the project, but also to contribute to promoting such projects, and consequently – to developing the market. I would like to note the high level of the participants and the importance of the solutions proposed for financial system players and users of their services.”
At the end of the competition 3 winners were chosen: Talk Bank, a project for providing banking services via message exchange, OZ Forensics, a project for digital fraud prevention and Scorista – a service for borrowers’ credit scoring for non-banking credit organizations.
They will represent Russia in Toronto where the winner of the 2017 Innotribe Startup Challenge will be announced. The competition’s organizers will pay the travel expenses of the three winners from the Russian stage.
Matthieu de Herring, Head of SWIFT in Russia, CIS, and Mongolia, added: “The involvement of players which form the financial infrastructure is more than important and significant for such competitions as the Innotribe Startup Challenge. Their expertise makes the competition more applied and defines the necessary direction for financial system development. We are happy to see the positive result of our cooperation with NSD. Their experience as a systemically important depository is priceless.”