B-Hive hands over the torch to the strong community it established in just three years

  • Infrastructure
  • 19.11.2019 01:02 pm

B-Hive, one of the most successful fintech ecosystems in Europe, announces that the company has reached all original goals set up on its inception and is now ready to hand over the torch to the broader community.

Successful innovation and strong alliances 

Over the last three years, B-Hive brought together a fintech ecosystem of over 180 members, helped position Brussels as a gateway to Europe and saw major brands such as Lloyds, MoneyGram and TransferWise open offices in the country.

The company became a structural partner of Flanders Investment and Trade, broadening the scope from positioning Brussels to Belgium as a whole. B-Hive’s brand gained outstanding Belgian and international recognition. This thanks to B-Hive’s presence during prestigious international events on the one hand, and also because of the creation of an impressive network of 18 international partner hubs.

B-Hive executed several innovation projects, including a Consumer Onboarding (KYC) project for the banking sector that was handed over to Isabel Group and a number of successful projects in the insurance sector. Prime example is The Digital Green Card / Proof of Insurance Project. This project aims to digitize the insurance proof every car in Belgium should have on board. The project has completed a pilot and a vendor has been selected. It will be transferred to Assuralia to build and have a Minimal Viable Product in 2020.

Partnerships with large corporates and technology companies like Oracle were formed, where we saw the tech giant offer companies that graduated from B-Hive’s “FinTech Scale-Up program” a spot on their cloud marketplace.

Raf De Kimpe, Director of Business Development & Ecosystem at B-Hive“B-Hive enabled banks, insurance companies and market infrastructures to equip themselves with the tools and mindset to collaborate directly with start- and scale-ups. We leave the financial market stronger than when we started. Other associations like Febelfin and Assuralia have evolved further and are ready to take over in their respective communities, making the continuation of B-Hive in its current form no longer necessary. It’s time to hand over the torch to the broader community and explore new projects.”

The merger of startups.be and Scale-Ups.eu the last year, created a broad community for young and innovative technology companies. The community building for technology companies, not limited to financial services but across all domains, will going forward be done by Scale-Ups.eu, the growth platform in Belgium that brings startups, scale-ups, investors, corporates and public sector officials together for innovation and co-creation. FinTech Belgium remains the go-to ecosystem for emerging financial technology players.

Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity

B-Hive is currently working on a focused digital project in cybersecurity for market infrastructure companies leveraging the strong Belgian talent base in this domain both in the academic and private sector. Also, work is being done on a project focused on ethical and responsible AI. Discussions with partners are ongoing but the start of the new activities is targeted for the beginning of next year.

On 27 November, B-Hive’s success will be celebrated at the Digital Finance Summit in Brussels. The country’s largest fintech conference is co-organized with the European Banking Federation, Febelfin and FinTech Belgium. Many members of the B-Hive ecosystem, including large financial institutions, start-ups and technology experts will continue the dialogue on developing a strong European fintech sector.

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