For the sixth year running, EBAday hosted a dedicated Fintech Zone, where 16 cutting-edge fintech startups from across Europe and beyond pitched their proof of concepts and working products on the exhibition floor in Lisbon, Portugal.
Announnced as the 2024 Fintech Zone winner was Lune, which received an award from Geertjan Van Bochove, co-founder, COO and CFO of iPiD - the Fintech Zone winner in 2023 at EBAday in Madrid.
Lune is on a mission to make every product climate positive by default, through their application programming interface (API); helping companies embed climate action into their products. At EBAday Lune was represented by Olivia Howlett, the firm's marketing manager, who pitched in the Fintech Zone, and Oliver Laxton, who looks after business development.
Accepting the Fintech Zone winner’s trophy, Olivia Howlett said: “Thank you so much. It’s great to see climate embedded in finance. I want to say thank you to the other companies that pitched as well. This is the most fascinating stage for me - it’s great to see all the ideas.”
The 15 other finalists of the Fintech Zone were: Im-Par, Necto, nsKnox, Neterium, Lucinity, Abbey Cross, Movitz Payments, Equali, Bankish, ChainComply, Lemonero, Instarails, Kodex AI, TradeHeader, and Banxlocal.uk.
The shortlist of fintech start-ups this year showcased promising concepts across next generation banking, payments-as-a-service, instant payments, request to pay, identity services, fraud prevention, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), as well as cross-border payments.
All 16 finalists attended EBAday for the opportunity to network and pitch their products to leading payment heads and banking executives on the judging panel, during a dedicated five minute slot.
The panel of judges at EBAday's Fintech Zone 2024 included:
- Michael Knetsch, tribe lead instant payments, cash management, Deutsche Bank
- Kevin Brown, non-executive director, advisor & angel investor, Payments Industry Insights
- Paul Thomalla, non-executive director, Unifits
- Teresa Connors, managing director, Payment Matters
- John Mitchell, director, Sell IT Better
- Vincent Brennan, banking & payments advisor, Accenture
Announcing the winner, Daniel Szmukler, EBA director, said: “Just a word on Lune and what the judges have felt was a really compelling proposition - and something we haven’t seen in the past six years. Lune is a climate impact company, and has developed an API that helps banks track their climate emissions, but also gives them a much more horizontal perspective of offerings...”