NatWest selects five fintechs for growth programme support

Five fintech startups have been announced as participants in NatWest's new Fintech Growth Programme.

The selected companies include TunicPay, Ask Silver, mmob, Aperidata, and Sprive. They were chosen following a comprehensive evaluation process that featured pitches, presentations, and interviews.

Each of these UK-based startups is at the pre-Series A financing stage and focuses on innovative solutions within the payments sector. The Fintech Growth Programme provides these companies with the opportunity to collaborate with NatWest's Innovation team, senior decision makers, and to benefit from a structured scale-up curriculum.

David Grunwald, Director of NatWest Innovation, expressed the bank's enthusiasm for the collaboration. "We're pleased to welcome these five fintechs onto the NatWest Fintech Growth Programme. Their solutions and remarkable potential align with our commitment to create better outcomes for our customers. Collaborating closely with such talented UK entrepreneurs not only enhances our ability to be future focussed, but reinforces our dedication to fostering the growth of the innovation community."

Lee McNabb, Head of Payments Strategy & Partnerships at NatWest, highlighted the importance of collaboration in the fintech sector. "Payments is a network business and the days where big banks do everything themselves are over. To succeed in meeting customer needs and keeping them secure in their payment experiences we must embrace collaboration, partnership and learning through others. This is why I'm a huge supporter of the Fintech Growth programme. Working together with a talented and thought-provoking group of entrepreneurs can only bring good things for the market and our customers."

The fintech companies will partake in ten weeks of workshops, mentoring, and coaching with NatWest experts to support their business objectives. Among these companies, TunicPay is focused on creating trust infrastructure to protect against scams, while also streamlining good transactions. Nicky Goulimis, Co-founder at TunicPay, said: "We're thrilled to deepen our collaboration with NatWest, a bank that has customer safety at its core, to transform the digital payment journey to better combat tomorrow's fraud threats."

mmob is dedicated to enabling businesses to integrate API services across various channels using an embedded finance toolkit. Irfan Khan, CEO and Founder of mmob, stated: "As a Founder, I am looking forward to learning from the expertise of the NatWest team – especially in understanding how technology can be applied at scale to solve their customers' problems – as well as learning from my fellow participants as we tackle challenges together."

Aperidata aims to advance financial inclusion through its challenger Credit Bureau model by transforming credit scoring and lending through Open Banking. Stephen Ashworth, CEO of AperiData, highlighted the value of the collaboration: "This collaboration is a tremendous opportunity for us as we continue our mission of driving better outcomes for the financially vulnerable and underserved consumers. Having access to NatWest's senior leadership and industry experts will be invaluable as we embark on our next phase of growth."

Sprive provides solutions to help homeowners reduce their debt by facilitating smart overpayments and offering cashback from regular purchases. Jinesh Vohra, Co-founder and CEO of Sprive, said: "Gaining access to expert guidance and tapping into NatWest's valuable network presents an incredible opportunity for us as we continue our mission to help millions of homeowners pay off their mortgages faster."

Lastly, Ask Silver focuses on scam prevention by allowing users to verify the authenticity of communications through a Scam Checker. Alex Somervell, Co-founder and CEO of Ask Silver, remarked: "We're really excited to be joining the NatWest Fintech Growth Programme to share learnings to protect more consumers from scams. Their team has already been innovating in the space, and we're excited to work together to build the anti-scam tools of the future!"