Almost no industry is as important to the British economy as the one ensconced in the City of London, yet few have been as resistant to the technological disruption that has torn up everything from ecommerce and publishing.
That paradox is one that finance is acutely aware of, having for years taking the so-called "fast follower" strategy of keeping behind the bleeding edge of technology. In part this is due to finance being more highly regulated than other sectors, but it is also because the costs of failure in disrupted service can be so damaging to the business.
It is a problem that groups like the FinTech Innovation Lab is seeking to address by promoting promising start-ups in need of a funding injection. Here are some of the more exciting ones:
1. Cytora
Measures of market sentiment have been available to finance for some years, but measures of political sentiment are less talked about, despite the emergence of political intelligence firms.
Cytora aims to automate the latter process, and appears to have found a willing market as conflict flares up in regions such Ukraine, the Middle East and the South China Sea. Originally backed by Cambridge University, the tool works by scanning obscure news articles to obtain a measure of political tension, sometimes weeks before strife erupts.
2. Ripjar
Ripjar is a big data specialist that has recently joined the plethora of companies looking to peddle useful data tools to the masses – the sort of software that fits finance well.
The product itself is a series of dashboards in which customers can explore data feeds and generate charts to help make the information more digestible. As the tool operates online it can also monitor social media, blogs and news to gain insights into a given market, a process known as "social listening".
3. xWare42
xWare42 is the creator of software that greatly extends the usefulness of financial statements, providing far more information than a standard bill.
Purchases now appear alongside a wealth of data about the retailer, including address, opening hours, service numbers and even a map of its location. It also allows companies to add further discounts, encouraging customers to return and make further purchases.
4. XtremePush
Since smartphones have become ubiquitous, companies have been anxious to exploit them to push their products to customers – an ambition XtremePush is eager to help fulfil.
The product works by providing context-based alerts to people’s mobile phones when they are at events or just passing by a relevant store. This can take the form of offering people upgraded tickets at football matches, or even buzzing their phone with a discount as they walk past a coffee shop.
5. Signatur
There are few topics hotter in fintech right now than contactless payments and bitcoins, and Signatur’s products cater to the appetite for both.
These take the form of a storage device for cryptocurrencies, a tool for facilitating in-store payments and a service for sending money abroad. Taken together they give businesses a comprehensive suite to make money out of bitcoins, and customers an equally complete set of tools for spending virtual currencies.
6. B-Secur
Biometric security still seems like a space-age technology despite the fact that companies as large as Apple are already making use of it.
B-Secur hopes to capitalise on the desire to replace passwords with more unique features such as fingerprints, irises and voices. Customers of the fledgling firm will be able to use the above to secure data and restrict access to buildings and cars, replacing olderand more easily stolen access cards and credentials.
7. Antuar
Reduction in physical branches and the rise of online banking is forcing financial groups to rethink how they deal with customers across multiple devices.
This problem, which is also being experienced by more conventional retailers, is one that Antuar is looking to address by providing a unified view of a bank’s products across different channels. This enables both the customers and the staff to access accounts from desktop, mobile or tablet in a simplified format.
8. Atsora
Atsora’s suite of products is directed towards small and medium enterprises (SMEs) looking to improve their financial planning.
Integrating with traditional bank accounts the software-as-a-service (SaaS) package is comprised of financial analytics and "virtual CFO" software – covering the fundamentals of cashflow, costing, and forecasting, among other functions.