Banks, Financial Services, Innovations, Investments, Latvia, Technology

Already this spring, Rietumu Bank and StartinLV will hold the international contest Rietumu FinTech Challenge 2017, which will be a perfect platform for presenting new ideas. During the contest, young entrepreneurs will also be able to get advice from professionals and establish contacts with potential investors. 

According to Member of the Board of Rietumu Bank Eugene Dugaev, "We regularly cooperate with startups in the field of financial technologies and see that Latvia has a lot of talent, original ideas and thinking people. It is necessary to provide them with a comfortable environment for further development. After all, it is very important to be able to implement their ideas in practice, get professional advices, attract partners. For example, we, as a bank with a modern and open to integration infrastructure, provide startups with an the opportunity to use our platform for testing and practical implementation of their ideas." 

"Cooperation of the Association and Rietumu Bank is a great example of how to share knowledge with young companies and have a positive impact on the overall situation with the development of startups in Latvia," said Chairman of the Board of the Association of Startups StartinLV Ekaterina Novitskaya. She also noted that the Association regards Rietumu Bank as a good and reliable partner. 

Rietumu Bank has been already actively supporting Fintech startups for several years. Rietumu Fintech Challenge contest, held in previous years, has also been consistently supported by Rietumu Bank. It is worth noting that, in 2016, the main award at this contest was received by the company Nordigen, which today actively provides scoring services to banks and non-banking structures in different countries for qualitative assessment of the creditworthiness of their customers. Nordigen also entered the Top 20 winners in its nomination at the largest European contest of startups Slush. 

With the support of Rietumu Bank, FinTech Club meetings have also been organised – discussions of young entrepreneurs with recognised representatives of the Fintech industry in the club format. 

The Association StartinLV  was founded in 2016 in order to unite startups and other companies and organisations supporting this sphere. Currently, the Association has 60 members: 31 startups, non-profit organisations, 11 individuals and 9 corporate participants. 

Rietumu Bank is the third largest bank in Latvia and one of the regional leaders in the field of financial technologies. The Bank specialises in servicing international corporate clients and high net worth individuals. Rietumu clients can enjoy a full range of financial services, wide opportunities for e-commerce services and other advanced services.