Finqware, a Romanian fintech start-up, part of the last cohort of OTP Startup Partner Program, successfully completed a Proof of Concept project in Croatia, proving the functionalities and the value creation potential of Open Banking in this market.
The project involved Finqware team and OTP banka d.d., OTP Group’s Croatian subsidiary as the project’s sponsor, and it was aimed at establishing connections with the PSD2-compliant APIs of the major Croatian financial institutions. Thanks to Finqware, account aggregation will soon be possible for the local clients of seven banks in Croatia (Zaba – Unicredit, PBZ, Erste Bank, OTP, Raiffeisen, HPB and Addiko).
„After just six weeks working together with the local banks to make their PSD2 APIs working, our Finqware team achieved 90% market coverage. Against COVID-19, and a major earthquake in Zagreb we were able to deliver! Most of the data connectors have never been touched by any of our competitors. And I’m talking about fully tested production data connections, not just playgames with sandboxes.”, said Cosmin Cosma (foto), CEO & Co-Founder Finqware.
„This major achievement in the Croatian market was made possible by OTP Startup Partner Program, a perfect environment to bring fintech innovation from lab to market. Kudos go to OTP Banka d.d., our local banking partner in Croatia, whose team is committed to take the lead in Open Banking innovation!”
OTP Startup Partner Program is an international partnership program seeking later-stage startups with validated products and scaleups from all over the world, with the chance to build goal-oriented, business-focused, and mutually beneficial partnerships with OTP Bank.
The program starts with a 3-month pilot phase, after which the most successful cohort companies are admitted to a 6-month rollout phase aimed at supporting the full-scale, live integration of the tested solutions into the operation of the bank.
Finqware is one of 13 companies included in the third batch of the OTP Startup Partner Program and the only one from the cohort focused on putting Open Banking at work.
“The partnership we started with Finqware delivered very promising results during the pilot phase, and we are looking forward to taking this collaboration further, towards live implementation at OTP Banka, for the benefit of our customers in Croatia.” stated Zsanett Andresin, the Program Manager of OTP Startup Partner Program.
Launched in 2018, Finqware builds a cloud-based middleware that creates a bridge between businesses and their financial service providers, leveraging PSD2 implementation in Europe. Headquatered in Romania, the company aspires to become a regional leader in Open Banking space in Central and Eastern Europe.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
