In cooperation with MasterCard and NFT Ventures, SEB is starting-up the Lighthouse Development Programme for the second time in Estonia, giving smart fintechs the opportunity to further develop their products in cooperation with banks and investors. The programme will bring entrepreneurs together with banking experts, investors and MasterCard representatives to find as many cooperation opportunities as possible. Nearly three quarters of the fintechs in the previous round of the Lighthouse Development Programme started or continued cooperation with MasterCard and banks.

According to Siim Lepisk, Innovation Manager at SEB, companies are applying for the Lighthouse programme because it helps their business to grow faster. ‘The Lighthouse Development Programme will bring together Baltic fintechs more quickly with clients and partners which, in turn, also helps to find financing opportunities. This year, we will also be organising workshops for high-level executives from five Baltic fintechs within the framework of the Latitude59 conference, to help them find cooperation opportunities with Nordic banks and investors,’ explained Lepisk. The winners of the soon-to-begin programme will be given the opportunity to take the stage at the most important fintech conference in Europe, Money 20/20, which will be held in Amsterdam, in June. Europe’s top fintechs and bank managers visit the event every year. The best presenter at Money 20/20 will receive a sponsored invitation to the “MasterCard Start Path” presentation day in New York.

One of the participants in the Lighthouse Development Programme, Feelingstream (https://www.feelingstream.com/), creates better visibility from customer service conversations and uses an analysis of existing customer service conversations to find new sales opportunities, to search for departing clients, and to catch business-critical signals. Specifically, major service companies (banks, telecoms, insurance providers, etc.) lose a lot of money if they fail to focus on their existing customers. According to Terje Ennomäe, Chief Executive Officer of Feelingstream, their company decided to join the Lighthouse Development Programme primarily because rapid growth was extremely important for their business model, and Lighthouse helped them open the necessary doors in Nordic banks. ‘In addition, Lighthouse presented us with an excellent challenge, since keeping up with the timeframe of the programme required a serious effort from us. We are very pleased that we joined the Lighthouse programme because we have already entered into contracts with two banks, and one contract is still in the pipeline,’ said Ennomäe.

Companies that focus on one of the following key areas in the financial sector are invited to participate in the Lighthouse Development Programme:

• Security: authentication, client identity, fraud prevention;
• Inclusion: solutions for micro-enterprises, financial inclusion;
• Efficiency: banking as a service, artificial intelligence, digitalisation;
• User experience: solutions for merchants, accepting loans, Internet of Things (IoT), making payments with wearables, augmented reality (AR);
• Client relationships: data analysis, loyalty, reimbursement;
• Payments: cross-border payments, B2B, payment monitoring solutions.

Companies interested in participating in the programme may submit applications until 14 February, by filling in the form at https://www.mclighthouse.com/apply-now