Standard Chartered and SuperCharger successfully completed Hong Kong’s first home-grown Financial Technology (FinTech) accelerator programme.

The programme was launched in October 2015 to find top FinTech start-ups to participate in a 12-week structured curriculum which aims to help them grow in Asia. The programme has reached its first significant milestone in its journey to creating FinTech partnerships, Financial Services (Finserv) collaborations and fund raising opportunities. The Demo Day showcased in front of over 250 attendees the three key performance indicators of the programme: 

FinTech x FinTech partnerships: Gatecoin, an early stage start-up has partnered with MicroCred, one of our later-stage FinTech companies, further confirming the potential strength of the programme’s unique structure of accepting both early start-ups and later-stage growth companies at the same time. This partnership allows Gatecoin to scale beyond Asia into Africa. 

FinTech x FinServ collaborations: Amareos has confirmed its relationship with Thomson Reuters, exemplifying how FinTech startups can empower traditional financial services firms by reinventing the competitive edge and innovative spirit of new opportunities. 

Fund raising opportunities: MicroCred has closed a HK$558 million (US$ 71 million) of capital investment round within the last two weeks of the programme. The funds raised will be used for the expansion of MicroCred in China and the development of their internet finance strategy. The SuperCharger Investors’ Demo Day was also held on 6 April 2016 to provide the best opportunity for the start-ups to meet over 30 potential investors. 

Standard Chartered’s Global Chief Innovation Officer, Ms Anju Patwardhan, said: “Standard Chartered is proud to have concluded its first accelerator programme jointly with Supercharger in Hong Kong. We had great cross-industry collaboration from different players in the Hong Kong and China FinTech ecosystem and it provided the start-ups with opportunities to build on their strategies and businesses. 
Ms Patwardhan said: “It is part of our ongoing commitment to encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship. For example, the Bank recently announced the opening of the eXellerator, our state-of-the-art innovation lab located in Singapore to accelerate the implementation of our digital solutions for our business.” 

Founder of SuperCharger FinTech Accelerator Programme, Mr Janos Barberis said: “The vision to have both early and later-stage FinTech companies is a reflection of the necessity to accelerate growth of start-ups both during the programme but also among the cohort itself. We demonstrated the value of this model and this has made us hands down one of the most successful FinTech accelerator programmes. Deeply rooted in Hong Kong, we are also able to demonstrate that this city can attract some of the world’s most successful FinTech companies whilst nurturing the outstanding local talents.”