Seoul City and Shinhan Card Develop Innovative Business Models with Fintech Startups... Winner to Be Selected in November

Support for 83 Promising Fintech Startups... 7 Companies Selected for Collaboration Amid High Competition

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Seoul City announced on the 20th that it has selected 7 companies to challenge the final 3 winners in the '2022 Finovation Challenge: Seoul City × Shinhan Card,' a project to discover innovative 'fintech' technologies and develop joint services. Finovation is a portmanteau of 'fintech' and 'innovation.'

The 'Finovation Challenge,' held for the first time this year, is a joint project with financial companies promoted by Seoul City, which is focusing on fostering the fintech industry, to nurture fintech innovative companies in a sustainable way rather than short-term.

The selected startups are companies possessing technologies that can contribute to the fintech industry in the future while enhancing service efficiency and consumer convenience. They will collaborate with Shinhan Card and the Shinhan Play platform on content provision, service development, and joint projects on social value management (ESG). The selected companies are △ StepPay, which has subscription payment solution technology △ The VC, an investment information platform company △ Village Baby, a childcare content platform △ Pinzle, an art license platform △ WeMeet Place, which has location information technology △ Monica, a youth financial solution company △ ATR, a carbon data company, and they will participate in future nurturing and collaboration programs.

The selected companies will enter a collaboration process over the next four months to mature innovative technologies and develop service models together with Shinhan Card’s current departments, enhancing the commercialization potential to introduce them to the financial market. Support includes mentoring by domestic and international experts, Shinhan Futures Lab startup nurturing programs, and global market entry.

Additionally, based on the results of collaboration with Shinhan Card, three final winning companies will be selected through evaluation after four months. The three winning companies will have the opportunity to present their business models at the 'Seoul Digital Finance Festival,' the largest digital finance industry festival in Korea, where their rankings from first to third place will be determined based on their presentations.

The three winning companies will be provided with a fintech startup customized incubating program supporting commercialization, investment, marketing, technology development, legal and patent consulting, and publicity according to their growth stages, as well as the opportunity to move into the Seoul Fintech Lab. In addition, companies that successfully commercialize their service models through collaboration will have opportunities for continuous collaboration projects with Shinhan Card, market entry of their service models, and investment attraction from Shinhan Financial Group.

Baek Hyun-sook, Director of New Growth Industry Planning at Seoul City, said, “We will diversify open innovation opportunities so that fintech companies leading the future financial market can realize their potential through collaboration with traditional financial companies and large corporations, and expand touchpoints where innovative startups can participate.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.