A Kickstart Accelerator programme in Switzerland has proved fertile hunting ground for some of the countries biggest banks as they seek out fresh talent and innovative applications for financial sector deployment.
The stand-out deal from the 30-strong cohort of startups passing through the programme came for Notakey, which has secured an agreement with UBS, Credit Suisse and Swisscom for a Proof-of-Concept on the potential of creating a 'digital identity-ecosystem' and exploring its potential as a cross-industry platform.
Notakey's technology enables users to notarise digital transactions, enabling banks to provide customers with the ability to sign contracts with third party public and private sector orgnasitions without having to furnish proof-of-identity.
Credit risk startup Lenditapp has also emerged from the programme with two PoC's to its name from Swisscom and Raiffeisen Switzerland.
Swisscom intends to run a 4 month PoC, which will see the two firms apply machine learning, data aggregation and underwriting models to automate and reduce the risk in lending to small & medium sized enterprises, while Raiffeisen Switzerland will try out Lendiapp's software for the automated digital processing of balance sheets.
Raiffeisen Switzerland has also agreed a PoC with LastMile to explore the possible uses of chat bots in its support operation based on text and voice in all Swiss national languages and dialects.
The 2016 Kickstart Accelerator launched on 22 August, with 30 start-ups comprising 89 entrepreneurs from 19 countries.A final demo day will see the cohort pitch to over 20 international and local investors as well as global corporate partners including AXA, Balderton Capital and World Economic Forum to secure funding or further PoCs.