https://www.wired.co.uk/event/wired-money-2016
What will be the next fintech breakthrough? On June 23, 16 startups from around the world gathered at the British Museum in London to pitch on the WIRED Money Startup Stage.
From blockchain to alternative lending and working in emerging markets, the startups had five minutes to pitch their ideas to our expert judges. On the panel, Marisol Menéndez Alvarez, open innovation manager at BBVA; Yann Kandelman, head of investment at Orange Digital Ventures and James Temperton, acting deputy editor of WIRED.co.uk.
These pitches are all focused on security and financial services.
AimBrain
"Up until now, biometrics have been very weak," says Peter Reynolds, chief commercial officer at AimBrain. The startup combines behavioural, facial and voice biometrics to build a trust score. This could be based on location, typing speed, biometric behaviour and more.
Unlike other biometric authentication systems that only validate at point of access – at login, for example – AimBrain works continuously. Once a user is logged-in, the software continuously asses them and sends the authentication score to the bank. If the score drops below a certain threshold it will trigger an alert and ask the user to provide more authentication data such as facial or voice recognition.
This "multi-module authentication", Reynolds explains, could finally get rid of passwords for good.
Algo Dynamix
What if you could predict market trends without relying on historical data? Founded in Cambridge in 2013 and now based in London, Algo Dynamix uses clusters of data to spot anomalies that could indicate a slide in prices. The company says it can spot trends days or even weeks before the anomaly becomes visible to anyone else.
According to Simon Broch, the company's vice president of business development, 95 per cent of all trading is digital but nobody know what's going on. Algo Dynamix, he continues, tries to "make sense of the ones and zeroes".
Cybertonica
Abandoned purchases cost online retailers billions of dollars a year. Most of the points of 'friction' are caused by extra security measures designed to eliminate card fraud, but according to Joshua Bower-Saul, CEO of Cybertonica, these systems are not fit for purpose.
His solution: use artificial intelligence to analyse data and transaction behaviours in real-time. If used by online retailers, such a system could increase sales by 30 per cent. By pre-screening payments and devices the system removes the need for secondary security checks such as 3D Secure. And such a system, Bower-Saul says, also detects and prevents against fraud.
Origin
The current process for bond issuance is manual and expensive, explains Raja Palaniappan, CEO and co-founder of Origin. He's established a digital community for issuing bonds. By connecting investment banks and borrowers, the startup aims to make communication and pricing easier and fairer.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
