The ubiquitous influence of fintech continues apace with yet another opportunity for financial technology entrepreneurs in Asia to help accelerate product and business development.

Applications are now being invited to FinTech Innovation Lab, which is global professional services company Accenture’s 12-week program that helps early and growth-stage financial technology companies accelerate product and business development by gaining exposure to top financial institution executives.

finews.asia reported recently Investments in Asia-Pacific fintech companies are on the rise. Over the first quarter of 2016 investments totalled $2.7 billion, representing 51 percent of the $5.3 billion invested into fintech companies globally.

Disruption & Data

«We’re having fintech discussions at financial institutions across Asia, as executives want to know about the latest cutting edge fintech solutions to invest in, develop or buy that can streamline services for customers,» said Jon Allaway, senior managing director at Accenture and the executive sponsor of the FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific.

The FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific is a program for entrepreneurs that are developing cutting-edge and disruptive technologies for the financial services sector. The focus for change and innovation is aimed in the areas of big data; analytics and cognitive computing; security and identity management; risk management and compliance; digital marketing and social media; cloud; payments; blockchain technology; talent management; and, Internet of Things applications.

Banking Heavyweights

«As part of the new financial services ecosystem, HSBC is pleased to deepen its collaboration with the fintech community, which will help us to improve customer experience,» commented Raymond Cheng, HSBC’s chief operating officer for Asia-Pacific.

The twelve principle financial institutions involved in the program are: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, Generali, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Maybank, Morgan Stanley, Sun Life Financial and UBS. In addition, supporting banks include: China CITIC Bank International, China Construction Bank (Asia), Macquarie, Nomura, Standard Chartered, Siam Commercial Bank, Societe Generale, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG).