50 hottest businesses in European fintech revealed

The FinTech 50 2015, an index of the most innovative names in the European fintech sector ,was released today as decided by a panel of industry experts including Ian Morgan, industry director financial services Google, Richard Peers, Microsoft banking industry lead and Chris Skinner, chairman of the Financial Services club.

The businesses were recognised at an exclusive event sponsored by Kemp Little, at The Leadenhall Building in London on Thursday 29 January. There were no awards, and no overall winner, rather the panel selected the companies they believed will significantly contribute to, or transform, the sector in the coming year.

There were a number of familiar names in what is now the third year for the scheme, including startups venture funded business of the year 2014 Currency cloud – a payment platform that allows for low cost and secure international money transfers.

International money transfer service TransferWise – founded by 2012 Young Guns Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Kaarmann – made the cut for the third year running as did Nutmeg; Young Gun Nick Hungerford’s online investment platform which recently raised $32m.

Young Guns alumni Samir Desai, James Meekings and Andrew Mullinger’s peer-to-peer (P2P) lending business Funding Circle was also named.

The list includes pioneers and innovators from a range of financial service verticals including, crowdfunding, international payments and P2P lending.

The FinTech 50 2015 are:

• Adyen
• Algomi
• BehavioSec
• Blockchain
• BUX
• Byhiras
• Calastone
• Commuter Club
• Credit Benchmark
• Crowdcube
• Currency Cloud
• Cybertill
• Darwinex
• Duedil
• Earthport
• Edbury
• eToro
• Etronika
• Fidor Group
• Five Degrees
• FundApps
• Funding Circle
• GoCardless
• Guidants
• Holvi
• Insly
• Invoice Sharing
• Ixaris
• Klarma
• Kreditech
• Lendinvest
• Mambu
• mbank with efigence
• Merit Software
• Nutmeg
• OpenGamma
• Osper
• Parmenion Capital Partners
• Squirrel
• Stockomendation
• Sybentix
• Symetrics
• Synerscope
• Tink
• TransferWise
• Traxpay
• Trunomi
• Trustly
• Wora Pay
• Zooz

Currency Cloud vice president of marketing, Todd Latham, said: “FinTech 50 is testament to the wealth of FinTech talent coming out of Europe. London is alive with financial services challengers and it’s fantastic to be part of this vibrant scene.

“Over the past year we’ve seen FinTech evolve from an exciting buzzword, into a lucrative industry that’s even causing the government to sit up and pay attention – with George Osborne last year launching trade body Innovate Finance.

“As transparent, flexible, technology-focused alternatives eat into the margins of traditional players, banks will need to consider their next move carefully – managing the right balance between collaboration and competition.”