ABN AMRO sounds the gong for fintech accelerator Econic
By striking the gong, ABN AMRO celebrates the opening of fintech accelerator Econic in Eindhoven. Fintechs and the bank’s employees will meet each other here in an independent environment to develop and test their ideas together. Day-to-day management of the hub will be carried out by external innovation experts. Last month, Econic started developing six ideas put forward by ABN AMRO employees and four from fast-growing start-ups.
Joop Wijn, member of the ABN AMRO Managing Board: ‘Econic brings together the worlds of fintechs and the bank. Promising ideas will be tested continuously against the bank’s day-to-day reality. This makes the innovation process swift and robust.’ Anique Soetermeer-Gabriëls, innovation expert at Econic: ‘Collaboration between corporates on the one hand and start-ups and scale-ups on the other is key to making a difference in the international knowledge economy. This initiative is an outstanding way of making this happen.’
Econic will work with a proven innovation process, which the experts leading the hub have used previously for High Tech XL and various Dutch top 100 companies. The process, which will now be applied to fintechs and other fast-growing companies for the first time, involves continuous monitoring of the innovation teams, workshops and master classes to achieve a ready-to-market proposition in six months. Besides fintechs, other companies with new ideas that can have an impact on corporate banking are also welcome at Econic.
For more information: www.abnamro.com