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The 2016 Fintech Finance 35: Fabian Vandenreydt

No. 24

24. Fabian Vandenreydt
Head, Innotribe
SWIFT
Last year: 26

Ecosystems designed to bridge the culture gap between established financial institutions and technology start-ups and encourage investments in the latter are so commonplace today that more than 30 of them have come together in the Global FinTech Hubs Federation, which SWIFT’s Fabian Vandenreydt and Innovate Finance’s Lawrence Wintermeyer (No. 28) launched in August. Back in 2009 — “before fintech became a sound bite,” Vandenreydt notes — there was only Innotribe, an initiative of the Belgium-based SWIFT bank messaging cooperative intended to promote innovation among its membership and by extension throughout the financial services world. A former Euroclear vice president and Capco consultant who joined SWIFT in 2004, Vandenreydt was present at the creation of Innotribe and has been its head since 2013, overseeing, among other activities, an annual competition for start-ups that stages preliminary events “beyond the normal hubs,” he says, in places like Mexico City and Cape Town, South Africa. This year’s Innotribe Start-up Challenge winners, crowned during SWIFT’s Sibos convention in Geneva in September, were U.K. companies Coin Sciences and RISE Financial Technologies, and San Francisco–based SmartContract. All are working on blockchain, or distributed ledger, systems, which in Vandenreydt’s view “will evolve in certain pockets of the market. It is not ready, though, for broad adoption across the industry.” The 51-year-old wears other hats: He is global head of securities markets; head of the SWIFT Institute, which has commissioned academic research on such topics as blockchain, payment innovations, and open application programming interfaces in banking; and is executive co-sponsor of SWIFT’s own R&D. The common thread is “ecosystem enabling,” Vandenreydt explains: “I want to weave innovation in with the business. You have to be agile in the way you respond to market opportunities. Otherwise it’s a hobby.”


The 2016 Fintech Finance 35

1. Jonathan Korngold
General Atlantic
2. Matthew Harris
Bain Capital Ventures
3. Jane Gladstone
Evercore Partners
4. James Robinson III & James
Robinson IV
RRE Ventures
5. Steven McLaughlin
Financial Technology Partners
6. Amy Nauiokas & Sean Park
Anthemis Group
7. Richard Garman &
Brad Bernstein
FTV Capital
8. Gerard
von Dohlen
Broadhaven Capital Partners
9. Darren Cohen
Goldman Sachs Group
10. Hans Morris
Nyca Partners
11. Meyer (Micky) Malka
Ribbit Capital
12. Maria Gotsch
Partnership Fund for New York City
13. Barry Silbert
Digital Currency Group
14. Jay Reinemann
Propel Venture Partners
15. Mariano Belinky
Santander InnoVentures
16. Justin Brownhill & Neil DeSena
SenaHill Partners
17. François Robinet
AXA Strategic Ventures
18. Vanessa Colella
Citi Ventures
19. Michael Schlein
Accion International
20. Kenneth Marlin
Marlin & Associates
21. Rumi Morales
CME Ventures
22. Alastair (Alex) Rampell
Andreessen Horowitz
23. Steve Gibson
Euclid Opportunities
24. Fabian Vandenreydt
SWIFT
25. Vladislav Solodkiy
Life.SREDA
26. Gardiner Garrard III
TTV Capital
27. Nektarios Liolios
Startupbootcamp Fintech
28. Lawrence Wintermeyer
Innovate Finance
29. Bina Kalola
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
30. Hyder Jaffrey
Fintech Innovation
31. Calvin Choi
AMTD Group
32. Janos Barberis
FinTech
Hong Kong
33. Jalak Jobanputra
Future Perfect Ventures
34. Sopnendu Mohanty
Monetary Authority of Singapore
35. Oskar Mielczarek
de la Miel
Rakuten
FinTech Fund

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