Swift to Shift Innotribe Strategy

Swift is pivoting its strategy for financial startups.

First, the global collective that powers inter-bank payments, will move away from its “boil the ocean” strategy of supporting the startup ecosystem, irrespective of the startup’s focus. Instead, Innotribe, its startup support system, will shift more toward initiatives in particular areas of fintech, like security or payments infrastructure (that’s blockchain to all of you in Silicon Valley), Swift officials said this morning at a press briefing.

This is a significant change from Innotribe’s directive since its launch in 2011, and the new direction is not without potential pitfalls. For one, Swift is no longer “supporting the ecosystem,” but supporting the ecosystem that can help Swift. Secondly, startups do not always fit into a neat box like “security” or “payments.” Swift might end up missing a potentially crucial opportunity not just for its own operations, but for global payments — and that would be a shame.

But perhaps more significantly, senior Swift officials implied today that the cooperative, which is technically a not-for-profit “owned” by its member banks, is keen to expand its acquisitions of startups. Innotribe does not take equity in startups, because it is, at its core, a competition. But Swift has no such restriction, and company officials said acquisitions are very much on their mind, particularly of security startups. Last year, Swift acquired security company Omnicision, its first startup purchase.

Swift is, well, massive. Through July, Swift had handled around 3.5 billion transactions globally. A total of 10,800 companies around the world use Swift for its payments, and that includes corporations, not just financial institutions. Swift’s size and reach mean an expansion of its acquisition strategy could have import not just for the startup ecosystem, but for some of its member banks that are already active in the fintech investment scene. Think BBVA or Citigroup.

What seems to be developing at Swift is a realization that blockchain and security are the predominating elements that could disintermediate Swift, but not necessarily the most common focus among Innotribe startups. (More than 300 startups applied for the Innotribe competition this year.) Which is why Gottfried Leibbrandt, CEO of Swift, specifically called out those aspects of innovation at today’s briefing. Apparently, it is not just enough to field Innotribe — Swift is compelled to “own” more of the innovation.

The finalists at this year’s Innotribe finale at Sibos, which starts Oct 12 in Singapore, are:

Early-stage finalists	Description
	Pariti helps people to avoid high-interest debt – access fairer rates of credit – and build a more secure financial future – by offering tools – guidance and access to low-cost loans. Visit their website and check out their pitch in London
	Revolut allows customers to exchange currencies at interbank rates – send them through social networks and spend money with a multi-currency card accepted anywhere. Visit their website and check out their pitch in London
	Sedicii proposes a technology based on the Zero Knowledge Proof Protocol – eliminating the transmission – storage and exposure of private data during authentication or identity verification. Visit their website and check out their pitch in London
	Iwiafrica delivers mobile applications on top of existing mobile wallets to help banks and merchants increase mobile e-commerce. Visit their website and check out their pitch in Cape Town
	Notafy provides secure messaging infrastructure to help companies communicate with their customers via mobile instant messages instead of costly SMS. Visit their website and check out their pitch in Cape Town
	YueDiligence offers actionable and light-touch due diligence tool for entrepreneurs -investors and service providers to assess deal readiness. Visit their website and check out their pitch in Cape Town
	Bitspark is the world’s first cash in cash out remittance platform leveraging Bitcoin and Blockchain technology for Money Transfer Operators (MTO’s) to send and receive remittance payments to emerging markets quicker cheaper and with zero bitcoin knowledge required. Visit their website and check out their pitch in Singapore
	Jewel Paymentech is a Singaporean company providing an automated risk management platform for banks and payment facilitators to manage e-commerce merchant risk through predictive analytics. Visit their website and check out their pitch in Singapore
	Trustingsocial is inventing consumer credit rating for emerging markets by applying Big Data and Deep Learning technologies to social – mobile and web data. Visit their website and check out their pitch in Singapore
	Hyper is developing Hyperledger – a distributed ledger platform tailored for financial institutions to help mitigate settlement risk – prevent trade breaks and cut reconciliation costs. Visit their website and check out their pitch in New York
	SizeUp provides financial institutions with big data for their small business customers to make smarter decisions through data. Visit their website and check out their pitch in New York
	Token helps banks meet the requirements for fast and secure payments by providing an end-to-end payments ecosystem accessible to developers where all transactions are authorised using digital signatures. Visit their website and check out their pitch in New York