Europe’s 50 “hottest” FinTech businesses announced

A guide to the 50 financial technology (FinTech) companies in Europe with the most potential to “transform” the industry has launched today, as part of the week-long FinTech City London initiative.

Unveiled at an event at Google Campus last night, the FinTech 50 2014 recognises the “hottest” businesses that look to redefine the future of financial services based on their potential for innovation and turnover.

Selected from a list of over 200 firms by a panel of  industry leaders from across the FinTech sector, such as Google’s Debu Purkayastha and Alex Macpherson of Octopus Ventures, companies named in the guide include equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs, featured in the Startups 100 2013, and Startups Awards winner Wonga.

Other financial businesses featured in the list include TransferWise, founded by 2012 Young Guns Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann,  Iwoca, co-founded by 2013 Young Guns Christoph Rieche and James Dear,  and Duedil, founded by Damian Kimmelman, member of the Young Guns class of 2011.

Now in its second year, the FinTech 50 is a scheme created by The CEO Agenda and ICON Corporate Finance, in collaboration with Hotwire, Sillicon Valley Bank and Fox Williams, to “salute” those leading the FinTech “revolution”.

Chosen from a range of financial service verticals including retail banking, peer-to-peer lending, international payments and crowdfunding, the FinTech 50 2014 are:

1. Abundance
2. Accept Email
3. Behavio Sec
4. BlueSpeck Financial
5. Borro
6. Bottomline Technologies
7. Brady
8. Credit Agricole Apps
9. Calastone
10. Clear2Pay
11. Digital Shadows
12. Dovetail Systems
13. Duedil
14. eToro
15. Etronica
16. Expense Magic
17. Fidor Bank
18. Five Degrees
19. Fitnetix
20. Free Agent
21. Funding Circle
22. GoCardless
23. Help my Cash
24. Holvi
25. Iwoca
26. ixaris
27. Klarna
28. Lemonway
29. Linedata
30. MBank
31. Meniga
32. Merit Software
33. Nagra ID
34. Nutmeg
35. Open Gamma
36. Openvoice
37. Paymill
38. Pensions First
39. Perseus Telecom
40. Pingit
41. Seedrs
42. Smartstream
43. Sushi.io
44. Synerscope
45. TBricks
46. The Currency Cloud
47. Thunderhead
48. Transferwise
49. Wonga
50. Zopa

Claudia Bate, associate director at Hotwire, commented: “The FinTech 50 stood out to our judges for showing the potential to change the financial services industry as we know it. FinTech is an exploding sector and these companies exemplify the remarkable talent in Europe.”