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Six startups representing Bangalore, Mumbai, Singapore, Seoul, Sydney and Kuala Lumpur enter finals after winning regional competitions

Six startup teams from their respective Asia Pacific cities have been selected to join 18 others to compete for the title of ‘Best in Show’ and a US$10,000 prize at the Fintech Finals in Hong Kong later this month.

The six earned their tickets to Hong Kong after pitching their business models before live audiences and judges in Bangalore, Mumbai, Singapore, Seoul, Sydney and Kuala Lumpur.

One of them is Kuala Lumpur-based CurrenSeek, an app that allows the user to find best rates for currency exchange in the vicinity.

“It’s exciting and somewhat unexpected, to be honest, to be selected. It’s an honour and we hope we can do Malaysia proud,” said Hakim Karim, Co-founder of CurrenSeek.

Also Read: 3 Singapore startups win top fintech innovation awards by Citi

CurrenSeek and the other regional winners emerged tops against 60 other teams who were shortlisted from the hundreds who applied through the Fintech Finals 2016 website.

They will go up against six teams sponsored by regional incubators and accelerators — namely Startupbootcamp Fintech, Accenture Fintech Innovation Lab, Innotribe, BBVA Open Talent, Nest, and Visa — as well as the fintech startups deemed amongst the Top 12, as determined by a panel of 50 fintech experts, from the applications received through the website.

The 24 teams will have eight minutes to present their products in a demo to a live audience.

The competition, which runs from January 25-26, 2016 as part of the StartmeupHK Festival, is co-organised by Next Bank, a global fintech community that fosters the reinvention of finance through design, innovation and entrepreneurship, and FinTech Hong Kong. It is supported by Visa and Startup Village.

Also Read: Will new regulations affect fintech startups in Hong Kong?

The following are the six regional winners:

• Singapore: InvoiceInterchange provides an alternative to traditional financing for SMEs and offers them flexibility in managing cash flows
• Mumbai: Shereit is an app for social trading.
• Bangalore: vLendRight allows banks, in collaboration with partner dealers, to deliver an end-to-end auto purchase platform for its customers.
• Sydney: Macrovue is an online platform that helps individuals adopt portfolios of stocks. These portfolios, referred to as “Vues”, are constructed after stock analysis by Macrovue, and can be customised by the user.
• Seoul: Finotek is a platform that provides identity verification for internet banking as well as cloud-based mortgage processing.
• Kuala Lumpur: CurrenSeek is an app that allows the user to find the best rates nearby for currency exchange.

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