Torq, the open innovation hub and corporate venture capital of the Brazilian financial software giant Sinqia, has launched the Fintech Innovation Challenge Crossborder Payment. The initiative aims to bring international payment technological solutions to Brazil. This comes as a result of great synergy between the UK and the South American giant.
As well as recent regulatory advances in both countries, organisations are looking to expand into each others’ territories across the sea. There is already an international presence of Brazilian companies in the European financial centre. But many British companies are looking to reach the Brazilian market too. The program will take place in April during UK Fintech Week, an event organised by Innovate Finance, an independent industry body that represents and promotes the global fintech community in the UK.
Torq will select three fintechs that will go through Rocket Week. This will be a week of online mentoring with Sinqia professionals for project development. The startups’ products will move on to the proof-of-concept phase. There, real possibilities for partnership and business with clients from Sinqia’s fund market portfolio will be made available. After the immersion, the solutions will be presented to a panel of invited experts who will choose the best international payment product.
The challenge will serve as a bridge for British fintechs to have strategic access to one of the main innovation initiatives for the financial market in Brazil.
“The UK brings together a vibrant ecosystem of fintech talent and innovation. Within this, we detected many opportunities for innovation based on the needs of the exchange markets”, says Leo Monte, chief innovation officer at Sinqia and managing director at Torq.
Capitalising on a booming market
The potential of the Brazilian financial market is enormous. The country’s banks invest more than R$30billion (approximately $5.7billion) in technology annually. This is according to data from the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban).
In addition, the country has become a world reference in regulatory and technological advances in the sector. A great example is the payment method PIX (instant payment system). Since its launch in 2020, more than 26 billion transactions have been carried out in the national financial system. The total movement exceeds R$12.9trillion (approximately $2.4trillion).
The event is supported by Open Banking Excellence (OBE), a community of open banking and open finance pioneers.
The Challenge’s opening presentation on April 17th will include
- Willian Araujo (FX OPs coordinator at Banco BV)
- Rafael Teruszkin (LatAm business PagoNxt at Santander)
- Daniela Agostini (Torq culture and innovation ecosystem coordinator)
- Carlos Ribeiro (head of product development at Sinqia)
- Celso Filho (foreign exchange specialist at Sinqia).
During the demoday, on April 24th, there will also be the participation of Helen Child, CEO of OBE.
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