Pushfor and Xtremepush to head to Innovation Jam final

16 Mar 2018

From left: Ben Robinson, chief strategy officer, Temenos; Carolyn Quinlan, programme manager, Bank of Ireland; and Jason Bates, co-founder, 11:FS. Image: Julien Behal

Dublin Innovation Jam is the first of eight competitions to be held across the globe to find the most exciting fintech start-ups.

Dublin software company Xtremepush and UK start-up Pushfor will compete in the Temenos Innovation Jam final in May after winning in the Dublin round.

The Dublin Innovation Jam, which was hosted together with Temenos and Bank of Ireland at the latter’s Startlab on Camden Street, saw 13 fintech companies compete for the two prizes on offer.

‘Based on the quality of the pitches in Dublin, I am certain we’ll uncover some amazing fintech solutions’
– BEN ROBINSON

Each of the start-ups had seven minutes in which to present a live demo of their solution to impress the audience of more than 120 people.

Nine of the start-ups were from Ireland and included Europe’s first money messaging app, Plynk, which last year raised a series A round of more than €25m.

Pushfor, which won the public vote, is based in the UK and provides a platform across all devices that enables banks to push (rather than send) content so the original file remains secure at the source.

Xtremepush, which also took part in the competition in 2017, provides an analytics and engagement platform that allows banks to deliver hyper-relevant messaging to customers at crucial times in their user journey.

Identifying the next fintech disrupters

“This is the third year that we have run the Global Innovation Jam event and it gets bigger and better each time,” said Ben Robinson, chief strategy officer at Temenos.

“This year, we’re running eight jams across the world – three more than in 2017. Based on the quality of the pitches in Dublin, I am certain we’ll uncover some amazing fintech solutions. I would like to give my special thanks to Bank of Ireland for their support with the event and for being such active members of the MarketPlace community.”

The two winners will compete in the Innovation Jam final, which will be held at the Temenos Community Forum on 22 to 24 May, also in Dublin.

Pushfor and Xtremepush will be joined in the final by the winners of the other Innovation Jams, which are taking place in Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, London, Geneva, Amsterdam, Luxembourg and Miami.

There, they will compete in front of a much larger audience of more than 1,200 delegates. Last year’s winner was PayKey, the world’s first payment keyboard, while Blue Code, a mobile payments app and scheme based in Switzerland, walked away with Judges’ Choice.

“As part of Bank of Ireland’s commitment to open banking, we were delighted to partner with Temenos in bringing this global event series to Ireland for the first time,” said Garvan Callan, head of strategy for digital and innovation at Bank of Ireland.

“The Innovation Jam is an important forum for sharing the latest fintech ideas as well as an opportunity to discuss the digitisation of the industry, which is really exciting and timely for Bank of Ireland. We are delighted to be providing access for Irish fintechs to launch onto a global platform through Temenos, the bank’s core banking platform software provider.

“Our aim is to service our customers’ needs as best as we can, and we are committed to building a strong partner ecosystem to support these ambitions,” said Callan.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com