Who took the coveted prize at FinovateEurope 2020?
Greg Palmer, VP of Finovate, takes a deeper dive into the Best of Show roster from FinovateEurope 2020. As a reminder, Finovate’s Best of Show awards are 100% decided by our audience, and the winning companies not only have amazing technology in their own right, but they also tell us a lot about what types of solutions are resonating among the industry.
In alphabetical order, the Best of Show winners at FinovateEurope 2020 were:
1. Dorsum 2. Glia 3. Horizn 4. iProov 5. Sonect 6. W.UP
With winners coming from Hungary, Canada, England, Switzerland, and the United States, this year’s Best of Show class is more or less representative of the geographies which FinovateEurope’s attendees call home.
Interestingly only Horizn and Sonect were first-time BoS winners; all four of the others have already taken home trophies from previous Finovate events. This reinforces the belief that many people have about what’s going on in the fintech
industry: that companies who have been able to get to the forefront of the innovation curve over the last 5 years or so have a huge structural advantage over their younger, more early-stage competitors. We’ve seen a shift in the VC funding world where more
money is going to established leaders than it used to (as opposed to younger startups), and it’s also been clear for a while now that fintechs that have existing relationships with banks are more attractive to new potential bank customers.
It’s worth noting, though, that there’s also a simpler explanation – doing a live, seven-minute demo is not easy, and companies who have more experience doing it successfully are understandably better at using that format to their advantage at future events.
As we start to look at the actual content of the BoS winning demos, though, another pattern emerges – all of these companies have prioritized delivering excellent customer interactions, which is clearly something that everyone in the industry is eager for. In an industry that has historically had low customer-service expectations, it’s encouraging to see so many companies prioritizing user experience, and so many banks recognizing the value that a strong UX can deliver.
Let’s start by looking at Glia, who is now in second place all-time on the Finovate Best of Show scoreboard with a whopping 8 victories.
Glia’s digital customer service platform seamlessly connects financial institutions with their customers across chat, voice, video, and co-browsing in order to help customers get the tools and information they need to become happy, satisfied customers.
A customer-first approach has always been at the heart of what Glia has been offering, and their wall of trophies can attest to how attractive this kind of solution is to the banking industry.
First-time winner Horizn tackles things in a slightly different way, driving digital adoption by equipping both employees and customers with the knowledge to improve the customer experience and dramatically increase digital adoption across all channels. By helping banks distribute knowledge to the people who need it most, they’re able to create an easier path to increased tech engagement among customers and employees alike, creating a very customer-friendly environment along the way.
Dorsum is a repeat-winner in the investment/financial planning space, giving advisors multiple ways to engage with their clients and make intelligent, personalized recommendations. There’s a strong incentive for advisors to engage with Dorsum, as it’s a massive boost to their business development efforts, but they do it by focusing on each customer as an individual and allowing advisors to easily provide the right kind of advice for their clients. Personalized experiences make for happy customers, and happy customers make for successful wealth-managers.
W.UP shares a common ancestor with Dorsum, and they too use data to create a personalized experience, although in W.UP’s case, it’s on the banking side. By using AI and the data that a bank already has on its customers, W.UP lets banks understand and cater to customer needs in real-time, helping customers realize their financial goals and establishing a deep relationship between customers and their bank. KYC solutions are important from fraud and regulatory standpoints, but W.UP shows how really knowing and understanding your customer can improve their financial lives, in addition to delivering an excellent customer experience.
Talking of KYC and identity challenges, iProov completed their hat-trick of Best of Show awards with their ever-improving biometric authentication solution. Their new suite of solutions goes beyond letting customers authenticate themselves on their own devices using facial recognition or palm scanning, and now opens the door for automatic verification at unmanned kiosks, terminals, or ATM’s. It’s clear that iProov is looking to meet customers where they are, wherever they are, and they are able to deliver a simple, easy experience for customers without sacrificing security or creating unnecessary exposure to risk.
Meeting customers where they are is also a signature trait of Sonect, who makes cash available at a wide variety of locations, including over 2,500 retail establishments like pharmacies, coffee shops, and more. They are even piloting deliveries, allowing users to order a pizza for delivery with a side of cash instead of the usual breadsticks or salad. It’s always interesting to see cash-based solutions on stage at a fintech conference, but in Sonect’s case, it’s easy to see why so many attendees were captivated by what they were doing.
Looking at this list, it’s clear that in order to have a chance of winning a Best of Show award at a Finovate event these days, you have to not only solve a real problem for banks, but you have to solve it in a way that’s easy and attractive for customers. Customers have more choices and more freedom with their money than they’ve ever had before, and the battle is on among financial institutions who want to win them over. In order to be competitive, both FI’s and the fintechs who support them have to be continuously raising the bar – we’ve seen the gauntlet thrown down at FinovateEurope 2020, and the standards for success have never been higher.
Finally, Finovate events are about much more than the handful of companies who win Best of Show. Not all of our previous Best of Show winners have had the impact they would have liked in the industry, and many of the companies that slip under the audience’s radar go on to do great things. I’d recommend that you look at as many demo videos from FinovateEurope as you can to get a true sense of the themes of the event and where fintech is heading.
Watch all the demos from FinovateEurope 2020 now
