Holland Fintech: Milestones of 2016

28 Dec Holland Fintech: Milestones of 2016

January – a great start with a great manifesto



We started the year with our first legal round table bringing together legal experts and companies discussing the regulatory barriers for FinTech in the Netherlands: the start of a series of great roundtables in 2016. Together with our member Innopay, we gladly received a delegation of ten people from the Ministry of Economic Affairs headed by Minister of Finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem in the offices of Holland Fintech. 
Holland FinTech also presented the long awaited research manifesto, produced in collaboration with Roland Berger, Rabobank and ING. The manifesto was presented at the Fintech-roundtable at the Dutch Parliament (Tweede Kamer der Staten Generaal) and gained significant media and political attention.

February - member funding and a Fintech ambassador

Holland Fintech member Spotcap raised €31.5 of funding and member SRXP Mobile Expense Reporting signed an agreement with the Dutch National Bank (DNB) to incentivise cloud storage of financial data. In politics, the Dutch government has appointed Willem Vermeend, professor in Economics and former minister of social affairs and employment, as the first official Fintech Ambassador of the Netherlands.

We had our monthly Meetup in Amsterdam in collaboration with Money 2020 Europe at one of our founding members, KPMG. The event was great! We gathered more than 300 people at KPMG main auditorium and we are looking forward to having the vol2 this year!

March – empowering innovation for our members


Member Voldaan and Innopay developed a unique way for small-medium enterprises to keep track of their outstanding invoices. Also, payment startup Mollie updated their checkout portal with customisable functions for merchants. Global firm and Holland Fintech member Markit merged with counterpart IHS into a giant financial data provider and investment platform Pritle took the first step into international expansion into Belgium.

We also had a special Meetup in Utrecht with our member Rabobank. This time the event was focused on a specific theme: big data. It was the first time that we decided to do something in Utrecht and we had quite an interesting and heterogenic audience. We will definitely replace ourselves in this city in 2017!

April – the first Dutch Fintech Infographic and member milestones



Crowdfunding comparison platform HelpTheCrowd launched a new Equity Crowdfunding Analytics tool. In the meantime, Daalder launched a fundraising campaign to finance its popular payment app. Security platform provider Onegini also showed progress entering into a partnership with Infosys Finacle. Online accounting firm Jortt is the first company in the Netherlands to offer payments via QR codes. Last but not least Australian-based iSignthis integrated its KYC service with Chinese e-payment sector leader Yeepay.

April was also the month of our first Dutch Fintech Landscape Infographic with a nice overview of the Dutch Fintech Landscape. During the year our infographic would grow into a complete overview, identifying more and more companies.

This month Holland FinTech was also flying to Copenhagen for the amazing Money 2020 Europe, where Don was one of the speakers and we had also quite a delegation of members coming over.

May – looking across borders

Sparkholder announced the launch of a new funding platform for small and medium-sized enterprises, called Loan Street, in cooperation with Rabobank and business software provider Exact. Dutch fintech company Voldaan announced it has expanded its services into Germany. 
Finally, after a great month, our Dutch Fintech Landscape Infographic gets its Version 2.0 being shared rapidly through the financial industry.

May was definitely an intensive months especially full of events:
We started with a small gather organised with our partner IBM: a Meetup at their Innovation Studio deeply focused on blockchain technology. We followed with a partnership with our member CMIS Group, organising a marketplace for credit scoring/fraud/e-signing solutions. The event, called Money in a Minute, was a great success, full of interesting pitches and network opportunities among the participants. Last but definitely not least our contribution to StartupFest Europe with two events: FinTechStage Amsterdam and MeetFinTechDay. Both events, sponsored by Deloitte and Rabobank, were hosted at Tripolis, a rough but inspiring building in Amsterdam Zuid. The two days gathered more than 300 attendees both Dutch as well as international.

June – start of bright Dutch Fintech summer

In Amsterdam, Social Fintech firm Whydonate has announced the launch of its new donation platform, which provides a solution for the CSR departments of corporations in response to their need to increase their social contributions. Meanwhile in London, Symetrics, risk analytics firm won the London edition of second International Hackathon organised by BNP Paribas. 
Back in Amsterdam, online mortgage lender bijBouwe had to slow down its rapid growth due to a customer overflow.

We partnered up with the New Dutch for the second edition of the event that aimed to get together all major Dutch banks to discuss future developments within the industry. June was also the month of roundtables. We had indeed quite a lot this month: about PSD2, about the consultative paper issued by DNB and AFM and on Regulators and FinTech.

July – Fintech in EU parliament and a blockchain sandbox

European attention on Fintech has risen this year: member of European Parliament (MEP) Cora van Nieuwenhuizen was appointed as the new rapporteur on Fintech on behalf of the European Parliament. Back in the Netherlands, it was announced that the Dutch government will open a blockchain campus for financial institutions to collaborate on new solutions.
 Meanwhile, Bitcoin firm Blocktrail has been acquired by Beijing-based bitcoin company Bitmain Technologies. In July we decided to start with a new format: the Investor Breakfast, where 5 selected start-ups got the chance to pitch and get closely in touch with 15 investors. The first trial was held in Amsterdam.

August – only sunny days for Dutch Fintech and its members

At the renowned Accenture Innovation Awards, the Holland FinTech-family was represented by twelve member startups. Holland Fintech also published its second Summer Reader, providing an extensive and insightful source of knowledge during the summer.
 Consulting firm and member Innopay has opened its first international office in Frankfurt, Germany and ING Bank has started working together with Owlin to deal with the overload of information of financial news.

It’s summertime also at Holland FinTech and what the nicest occasion to celebrate together with our members with a dinner event at WaterKant in Amsterdam and a great boat trip on HF Bravo boat!

September – international visits and crowdfunded members

Holland FinTech officially responded to the AFM/DNB discussion paper and attended SIBOS 2016 in Geneva. Our founder Don Ginsel was one of the speakers at the Fintech Hubs EMEA session. 
Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, our members credit analytics firm AdviceRobo and digital receipt firm MijnKassabon both launched crowdfunding campaigns. Holland FinTech received an official delegation from the state of Oman and we welcomed our member Eureeca with a new office in Amsterdam.

September as we know is school time! Holland FinTech decided to organise together with Rabobank, Capital Waters and Amsterdam Capital Week a Funding School for start-ups. In the outstanding location of Rabobank Dam Square, 12 start-ups got the opportunity to deeply learn how to approach investors and how to maximise the chances to get good deals.

Longtime member PaaS firm Magnetic.io signs a partnership with cyber security firm Bitsensor. Canadian hub Toronto Global pays a visit to Holland Fintech in Amsterdam providing great opportunities in North America. 
Moreover, members Klarna, Spotcap, Credit Kudos and Quantoz proudly feature in the Global Fintech 100 of KPMG & H2 Ventures. Lastly, October was the month we sent out our Global Fintech Update newsletter for the 100th time! Nice start of the month with the Hyperledger Hackathon organised by Holland FinTech, IBM, ABN AMRO & Linux Foundation. The event involved more than 100 hackers, working non-stop for two days on inspiring blockchain solutions.

Our October Meetup was held at Rabobank and in collaboration with FemTech London on the theme Women in FinTech. Great women were following on stage, sharing with the audience their successful fintech stories with a special angle on diversity.

November – partnerships, expansions and a new infographic

Great achievements for member Mollie, who started accepting AMEX payments and entered the e-commerce market in France. Spotcap also expanded, this time into the UK. Member Five Degrees raised an impressive amount of funding (€10 million) for extending their banking platform.
We at Holland FinTech signed two promising partnerships with Dinalog, a knowledge institute for logistical innovation and with Belgian Fintech hub Eggsplore.
 Also, the version 3.0 of our Dutch Fintech Landscape Infographic is published and we show an impressively large ecosystem with over 350 companies.

From the event perspective, November was very insightful month for us and our partners outside of the Netherlands. Firstly, we establish a partnership with Frankfurt Main Finance for a joint event in Amsterdam. At one of our members’ offices, Kempen & Co and with the support of Van Doorne and KPMG Meijburg we welcomed a delegation of 10 German companies interested in the Dutch market.
The second international step was London, with a special Meetup organised at the Dutch Embassy during our London Bootcamp organised with the city of Amsterdam. Five Holland FinTech members were selected to travel to London and meet inspiring companies that could help them in a future soft landing in the UK.

Lastly, we organised a trade mission in Frankfurt in collaboration with Frankfurt Main Finance and ING DiBa. With a delegation of 10 Dutch companies, we flew to Germany to connect with the Fintech hub of Frankfurt and shape a more international image of HF.

As per December the team of Holland Fintech moved to a new location at Scalehub, Wibautstraat 137F. After 52 member spotlights and 110 newsletters, more than 13 Meetups, numerous roundtables, investor breakfasts and memorable events we look back to a great year for Holland Fintech and our members. Yet, there still lies a big task ahead of us for 2017. We would like to thank everyone for their presence and loyalty to our network. With your help, we will continue to inspire, get inspired, collaborate, learn and engage in the upcoming year.