Selected 11 companies that won the 1st Maegyeong Fintech Awards
Edward Garcia, a 36-year-old migrant worker in the Philippines, has been under great stress as he wasted a considerable amount of time due to the complicated overseas remittance system of Korean financial companies. However, his colleague recently introduced his company to "Sentby," an overseas remittance service that allows people to transfer money 24 hours a day, and he has relieved such stress. Unlike conventional overseas remittances, Sentby allows people to easily transfer money anytime through online, and also has the advantage of being able to receive money within an hour after applying for remittance. "Sentby," the winner of the 2016 Maegyeong Fintech Awards, is a new concept overseas remittance service provider using Bitcoin, an online virtual currency. Taking advantage of Bitcoin, which allows people to move freely between countries, commission fees have been lowered by up to 90 percent lower than those of banks. Its main customers are migrant workers who work in Korea and spend their living expenses in their hometowns. Paycock, which won the grand prize, is a company that has developed a credit card payment service without a mobile POS terminal. Its main targets are businesses that have been in the blind spot of credit card payment, such as food trucks, traditional markets, street vendors, chauffeur service, food delivery, and insurance planners.
Among the first award-winning companies of Maekyung FinTech Awards, companies that showed brilliant ideas in new fields such as securitizing accounts receivable, providing housing prices, and managing expenses drew attention. These are examples of the fact that technology is evolving into new service areas beyond the simple payment and remittance fields that have led the fintech trend.
"Fin2B," which was jointly selected as the top prize along with Paycock, was expected to solve SMEs' concerns about financing through its account receivable securitization service. "Sales receivable" is a bond that occurs when a large company decides to pay later when a small and medium-sized company delivers parts. FintoB plans to significantly reduce the financing burden on SMEs by gathering investors and purchasing accounts receivable from SMEs on behalf of banks. Among the four companies that won the Excellence Award, "K&Company" is a company that provides real transaction information and market price information of row and multi-family houses using big data systems and artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence analyzes various information such as location, construction year, building materials, floors, and equilibrium to estimate market prices. "Bizplay" has developed a platform that automatically processes corporate card expenses management, which had to be handled mainly by hand. "Quarterback Technologies," which developed "PALMS," and "BSMIT," which created "FABOT," are currently the most notable companies in the robo-advisor field. In addition, "Covit" (blockchain-based global remittance), "Finda" (financial product comparison recommendation platform), "EasyMation" (virtual browser), and "Pinos" (reverse card payment system), which won the Encouragement Award, were also well received for their creative and brilliant items.
