Eleven startups participated in the DEMOvation challenge at the Bank Innovation Ignite conference in Seattle earlier this month. These startups, diverse in focus, comprised a wide range of the fintech ecosystem, including payments, security and blockchain. The winner of the competition, an identity proofing and verification startup Diro Labs, received admission to the INV Fintech Accelerator, this publication’s sister company, and an advertising package on Bank Innovation‘s website. The...

INV Fintech, the sister accelerator to Bank Innovation, announced a partnership today with the Berlin-based Open Bank Project to provide sandbox and development services to the startup and its 13 partner companies. The sandbox will offer startups in the INV Fintech accelerator a secure digital space to access and incorporate bank data into their applications. The startups can use an Open Bank Project sandbox to simulate bank integrations — and INV bank partners can demo those...

BBVA bank announced today that it has closed a $90 million corporate loan deal with their technology partner, Indra, via blockchain technology. The bank claimed that the transaction, which would typically take a few days to complete, closed in just a few hours. BBVA used its own internal blockchain system, which is built on the IBM-backed Hyperledger chain, during the successful pilot. BBVA’s global head of customer solutions, Derek White, said in today’s press release: BBVA’s digital...

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the National Bank of Canada (NBC) announced today that they tested a debt insurance simulation on a new blockchain platform. NBC issued a one-year, floating rate certificate of deposit for $150 million dollars to JPMorgan on the platform, with JPMorgan creating a replica transaction to NBC using a debt issuance application that runs on JP Morgan’s Quorum. The test is the latest in a string of blockchain pilots by banks. Christine Moy, Executive Director and Senior...

EXCLUSIVE – On March 6 in San Francisco, 12 impressive startups demoed their latest in fintech technology at INV Fitnech’s 2nd annual demo day. INV Fintech, the sister accelerator to Bank Innovation, is partnered with Fiserv and eight banking partners with over $3 trillion dollars in assets. The startups were carefully scrutinized and selected from over 400 applicants. In brief, the demoing companies included: Hoard Invest: Hoard Invest is a financial services platform and exchange for...