For the sixth consecutive year, EBAday featured a dedicated Fintech Zone, showcasing 16 innovative fintech startups from Europe and beyond. These startups presented their proof of concepts and working products on the exhibition floor in Lisbon, Portugal.
Lune was announced as the winner of the 2024 Fintech Zone, receiving the award from Geertjan Van Bochove, co-founder, COO, and CFO of iPiD, the 2023 winner at EBAday in Madrid. Lune’s mission is to make every product climate positive by default through their application programming interface (API), enabling companies to incorporate climate action into their offerings. At EBAday, Lune was represented by Olivia Howlett, the marketing manager, and Oliver Laxton, in charge of business development.
Upon accepting the Fintech Zone winner’s trophy, Olivia Howlett expressed gratitude, stating, “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 other 15 finalists in the Fintech Zone included: Im-Par, Necto, nsKnox, Neterium, Lucinity, Abbey Cross, Movitz Payments, Equali, Bankish, ChainComply, Lemonero, Instarails, Kodex AI, TradeHeader, and Banxlocal.uk. The shortlisted startups showcased promising concepts in areas such as next-generation banking, payments-as-a-service, instant payments, request to pay, identity services, fraud prevention, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and cross-border payments.
All 16 finalists participated in EBAday to network and pitch their products to prominent payment leaders and banking executives on the judging panel, each given a dedicated five-minute slot.
The judging panel for the 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
In announcing the winner, Daniel Szmukler, EBA director, acknowledged Lune’s compelling proposition, stating, “What the judges felt was particularly impressive was Lune’s focus on climate impact. They have developed an API that assists banks in tracking their climate emissions while providing a broader perspective on offerings.”