Barclays inks contracts with six fintech startups

Multinational banking and financial services giant Barclays has inked contracts with six fintech companies from New York Accelerator program.

The 10 companies of the 2016 New York class of the Barclays Accelerator include acuteIQ, customer acquisition powered by artificial intelligence; Alpha Exchange, the first open knowledge network for the capital markets community; Chroma, a securities exchange for the small business economy; Create, the property database of the future; ERNIT, the world’s first smart piggy bank; Morty, the newest, smartest way to get a mortgage; Painless1099, a smart bank account for tax withholding for independent contractors; PierceMatrix, an artificial intelligence engine to identify and remove hackers; StackSource, a new online platform for commercial real estate loans; and Windrush, cutting edge data visualization for analysts.

On Friday, these companies showcased their innovative FinTech propositions at a demo day in New York, marking the culmination of the second New York class of the Barclays Accelerator.  This second New York class of the Barclays Accelerator comes after running 6 programs in London, New York, Cape Town and Tel Aviv.

Of these 10 companies, Alpha Exchange, Windrush and AcuteIQ have engaged with a variety of Barclays’ businesses to investigate the implementation of new technologies:

• Alpha Exchange is working with Barclays Research to create a pioneering research platform, with the startup building an innovative open network that brings together the collective intelligence of the capital markets community
   
• Windrush is working with Barclays Research on the implementation of a data visualization platform leveraging machine learning technology
   
• AcuteIQ is working with Barclaycard US to run an online marketing campaign using artificial intelligence for one of the customer segments, with a view to increase card applications online at a much lower acquisition cost per customer

In addition, companies from previous New York Barclays Accelerator program continue to work in partnership with Barclays. This includes Wave, Chainalysis and LiveOak:

• Wave, together with Barclays Corporate Banking, is revolutionizing Trade Finance through the use of blockchain technology, reducing costs, time and fraud
   
• Chainalysis is working with Barclays Corporate to develop appropriate governance frameworks around blockchain technology
   
• LiveOak is working with Barclays UK on digitizing and improving the customer service experience for corporate clients