Barclays launches hub for fintech start-ups

Mumbai, June 15: British banking and financial services major Barclays on Wednesday launched Rise, an innovative hub for fintech start-ups, in collaboration with 91 spring board in Mumbai.

The new hub located in Lower Parel will provide a co-working location and a physical location for such start ups to use event spaces and meeting rooms on par with facilities in, say, New York or London.

The launch event of Rise saw finalists of Rise hack, a fintech Hackathon which was held online from 28 April to 17 May presenting their project to a group of seniorBarclaysofficials,industry experts and the global rise community. The winners receive a cash prize of R2 lakh along with membership to the global Rise network.

Associating with the Barclays name lends credibility to the start-up as well as giving it access to Barclays accelerator program which provides guidance from key decision makers at Barclays, mentoring from entrepreneurs and fin tech industry experts, access to technical expertise such as legal and IP issues and access to Barclays network of corporate partners.

A start-up can sign on by taking membership at different levels with different associated benefits. While the company has not disclosed the pricing of its levels in other location or sites overseas the lowest level of membership is free while a premium membership is considerably higher.

Barclays traditionally focuses on start-ups with capabilities in machine learning, lending, digital banking solutions, trading, cyber security, data analytics, payments, insurance and wealth management.

However, Rise Mumbai as of now has 10 start-ups out of which 7 are in the e commerce space. This is because this is where a lot of the action is in financial technology start-ups though Barclays is also looking at other segments and there is no upper limit to the number of start-ups that can join the platform, said Lubaina Manji, director and head of Rise and group innovation office.

Barclayswillnotprovide any investment or funding to the start-ups though it will put them in touch with potential investors.