FINQware won the big prize at Citi CEE Challenge in Warsaw for innovation based on open Banking

Aurel Dragan 07/11/2018 | 13:56

FINQware, a Romanian start-up fintech, brought to Romania the big prize at the Citi CEE PSD2 Challenge, which took place in Warsaw on October 30th. In addition to a PLN 25,000, this recognition of the potential of FINQ is accompanied by the opportunity to develop, together with Citibank Poland, the event organizer, innovative products and services based on Open Banking.

In the final of the Polish capital, 10 companies from the region took to the stage, demonstrating the applications developed and interconnected to Citibank Poland systems, and FINQware presented the PSD2 middleware infrastructure solution, which it has already developed, impressing the jury and the public present.

FINQware team continues its European tournament “FINQ Open Banking Tour 2018” after various appearances in events in Romania and Luxembourg. The following cities included in this tournament are Lisbon, London, Sofia and Berlin, where the co-founders will participate in various events, such as Websummit, TechCrunch Break and others. These presentations are meant to make the start-up solution and plans in the eyes of European investors the first to raise the external financing required for commercial launch, to be held in Romania in the coming spring, being a first commercial validation market.

“FINQware aims to be a regional leader in the Open Banking segment. Obviously the plan is to launch first of all with us, because we have the opportunity to bring the latest bank innovations to our home before expanding to Poland and other CEE countries. We still have far to go, as they say. Every effort to communicate with investors plays an important role in ensuring the necessary funding, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. True work is in product development, where things happen, without being able to talk about them at the moment, being confidential. And, it takes a bit of luck,” said Cosmin Cosma, co-founder and CEO of FINQware.

In addition to the award offered by Citibank, FINQware was also present on the stage of the NO-Cash and Future Banking 2018 event, both in Bucharest, qualified in the Fit4Start final in Luxembourg, the “Local Hero” award offered this summer by Raiffeisen Bank and the Transylvania Startup Awards, won in September in Alba Iulia.

“All these awards and recognitions are excellent for the FINQware project. They are a form of traction but not defining the success of the project. It helps us, but the real challenge is the development of the FINQ multibanking solution that we want to launch to help Europeans manage their money more efficiently. At this time, we are working intensely on the technical infrastructure and highly sophisticated strategic partnerships behind the products we are launching. We already have some strong European partners who have seen the potential of the project and support our development, such as banks, payment schemes, processors and banking technology providers,” said Cosmin Cosma, co-founder and CEO of FINQware.

These days, Cosmin is at WebSummit Lisbon due to the fact that FINQware has been selected in a series of 11 startups in the region to be represented in a delegation funded by MyGateWay, an organization supported by the European Commission.

FINQware Startup will also be present at the European Startup Summit in Sofia on November 15 at a Level39 pitching event in London on November 22, as well as on the stage of the international conference Banking 4.0 of November 27 in Bucharest dedicated to emerging technologies that will change their financial lives. In this event, Cosmin Cosma will moderate the panel dedicated to Open Banking.

This year’s tour will end on November 29-30, when FINQware will have a stand at the TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin event.

Together with Cosmin Cosma, a former banker with ING Bank, GE Capital, Garantibank and Volksbank, fintech’s founders are Danuţ Covalciuc, a banker with experience as Libra Bank Operations Manager and former COO of Malta’s Ferratum Bank Group, Dumitru Ţârâianu, an IT engineer with international experience in designing system architectures and implementing banking infrastructure solutions in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The shareholding includes the Work in Progress agency in Cluj, with expertise in mobile application development globally, such as Headspace, Zenefits, pray.com or What3Words, being the only 100% Romanian agency certified by Google Developer Agency.

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Aurel Dragan | 27/03/2024 | 17:32
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