ET BureauBENGALURU: US banking giant Citigroup is launching a corporate accelerator program for the Asia-Pacific region to engage actively with startups from countries like India, joining the ranks of other large banks that are looking to leverage disruptive ideas amid major technology shifts across the financial services landscape.
The 8-10 week accelerator program, called the Citi Mobile Challenge, will combine a virtual hackathon with an incubator and Citi is inviting developers from all across the region to participate in this program.
Citi, which spends billions of dollars every year on technology globally, said it had currently received about 1600 applications and is currently incubating at least 24 ideas internally as part of this accelerator program. Citi is currently conducting pilots internally with those two dozen ideas.
For this exercise, Citi is partnering with a number of Indian and multinational corporates to help handpick startups in sectors such as e-commerce and payments. IBM, Google, Amazon Microsoft Ventures, PwC Wipro and Nasscom’s 10,000 startups program are among those who have signed up as partners for this initiative.
Citi will invite more startups to pitch their ideas on a “demo day” and handpick startups that it wants to work with. The finalists from this program will compete for a share of $100,000 of cash rewards, mentoring, office space and further investments, among other things. Citi said this program would support the government’s Digital India and Startup India initiatives.
Citibank India’s head of consumer banking Kartik Kaushik said that the bank had already started engaging with a number of startups in India.
“It’s a good six weeks of investments that all the participants are going to make. It’s a very significant investment since everybody will be providing scale and shape to an idea for a business model,” said Kaushik. “We will take the benefit of some of these solutions into our rails as well.”
This is part of a global exercise where Citigroup is engaging with startups the world over from innovation hubs such as Silicon Valley and Bangalore.
“This is the first time we’re opening up APIs. We’re actually going to allow -- us and the partners -- APIs to be opened up for solutions to be built,” said Kaushik. “We’ve taken a long time to get here, but it’s always better late than never.”
Citi’s foray into the corporate accelerator space is part of a broader trend of the banking and financial services industry globally engaging with early-stage startups for disruptive technologies, amid a rapidly evolving technology landscape with the rise of payment banks, mobile wallets, new-age financial technology startups and crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin.
The traditional banking sector is facing rapid disruption from new-age fintech firms and banks such as JPMorgan and Citigroup are scrambling to leverage new technologies from startups to ensure their own survival.
Indian banks like SBI are also actively engaging with startups. Earlier this month, SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya sat in the front rows of a startup session in Bangalore, listening to how disruptive technologies and fledgling ventures are taking over the financial services industry.
Citi has already launched similar programs in the EMEA region, Latin America and the US over the past year.
The 8-10 week accelerator program, called the Citi Mobile Challenge, will combine a virtual hackathon with an incubator and Citi is inviting developers from all across the region to participate in this program.
Citi, which spends billions of dollars every year on technology globally, said it had currently received about 1600 applications and is currently incubating at least 24 ideas internally as part of this accelerator program. Citi is currently conducting pilots internally with those two dozen ideas.
For this exercise, Citi is partnering with a number of Indian and multinational corporates to help handpick startups in sectors such as e-commerce and payments. IBM, Google, Amazon Microsoft Ventures, PwC Wipro and Nasscom’s 10,000 startups program are among those who have signed up as partners for this initiative.
Citi will invite more startups to pitch their ideas on a “demo day” and handpick startups that it wants to work with. The finalists from this program will compete for a share of $100,000 of cash rewards, mentoring, office space and further investments, among other things. Citi said this program would support the government’s Digital India and Startup India initiatives.
Citibank India’s head of consumer banking Kartik Kaushik said that the bank had already started engaging with a number of startups in India.
“It’s a good six weeks of investments that all the participants are going to make. It’s a very significant investment since everybody will be providing scale and shape to an idea for a business model,” said Kaushik. “We will take the benefit of some of these solutions into our rails as well.”
This is part of a global exercise where Citigroup is engaging with startups the world over from innovation hubs such as Silicon Valley and Bangalore.
“This is the first time we’re opening up APIs. We’re actually going to allow -- us and the partners -- APIs to be opened up for solutions to be built,” said Kaushik. “We’ve taken a long time to get here, but it’s always better late than never.”
Citi’s foray into the corporate accelerator space is part of a broader trend of the banking and financial services industry globally engaging with early-stage startups for disruptive technologies, amid a rapidly evolving technology landscape with the rise of payment banks, mobile wallets, new-age financial technology startups and crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin.
The traditional banking sector is facing rapid disruption from new-age fintech firms and banks such as JPMorgan and Citigroup are scrambling to leverage new technologies from startups to ensure their own survival.
Indian banks like SBI are also actively engaging with startups. Earlier this month, SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya sat in the front rows of a startup session in Bangalore, listening to how disruptive technologies and fledgling ventures are taking over the financial services industry.
Citi has already launched similar programs in the EMEA region, Latin America and the US over the past year.
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