Competition for Innovative Businesses in FinTech

Digital Isle of Man is pleased to announce the launch of a competition for innovative businesses around the world; FinTech Innovation Challenge. It is a competition inviting global participants to provide solutions to specific problems in order to support the growth and application of FinTech across the Isle of Man. The Challenge will allow businesses to pursue opportunities to develop within the Isle of Man’s world-leading regulatory environment, as well as encourage collaboration with local communities to produce sustainable and innovative technologies to solve key challenges facing the financial sector.

Competition Challenges: 

• Digital identity management
• Know Your Customer, (KYC)
• Compliance & transaction monitoring
• Wildcard (Can relate to any aspect of the Financial Services Industry)

The winners in each category will receive:

• Additional promotion and publicity both locally and internationally. 
• Extended access to the marketplace of mentors, potential investors, and customers across the company sectors, as well as IOM regulators and government officers for 6 months.
• IT hosting and physical office space for 6 months to scale your product (To be confirmed).
• A unique opportunity to work with the government, the regulator, and businesses in a leading digital hub, and scale up solutions ready for the global market.

You should follow the following criteria:

• There are no restrictions on entrants other than being able to meet the Challenge and to demonstrate innovation in the solution.
• Applicants can be at any stage of business development.
• This competition is open to all products that have applications for the Financial Services and Digital sectors.
• There are no restrictions, the product can be a concept or completely formed but must demonstrate both applicability and innovation. 
• The demo pitch will need to be able to demonstrate how an ultimate product will work, and detail indicative timelines and cost to implementation.
• Multiple Challenges can be selected on the application form.
• You can work with existing clients whilst you are participating in the Challenge.

Challenge Program:

You will need to be working on the challenge with a minimum requirement of approximately 4 days in total which is allocated as follows:

• One full day for orientation and mentor matching.
• Workshops, consisting of 3 hours per week over the 5-week Challenge period. 
• 5-week contextualization program: 
• 2hrs per week for webinars, 1hr per week for 1-2-1 mentoring sessions or ecosystem conversations.
• One full Demo Day.

Competition Timeline:

• Applications open: 16th December 2022
• Applications close: 28th February 2023
• Shortlist interviews: 13th March
• Cohort Announced: 20th March
• Mentor matching: 21st-24th March
• FinTech Innovation Challenge starts: 27th March
• Demo Day: Week commencing 22nd May (TBC)
• Ongoing Cohort support

About Digital Isle of Man:

Digital Isle of Man was created to support the tech sector, developing and implementing a strategy to support sustainable economic growth and establishing the Isle of Man as a center of international excellence for the digital economy. As an Executive Agency within Isle of Man Government's Department for Enterprise, Digital Isle of Man is a public/private partnership, acting as a key decision-maker and advisory body for the economic prosperity of the sector.

See more scholarships available on For9a

See more available fellowships on For9a

See also the job opportunities in the Gulf on For9a