A total of 37 start-up teams have entered the nation’s first financial technology (fintech) coworking space, Taipei-based FinTechSpace (金融科技創新園區), the government-funded Institute for Information Industry (資策會) said yesterday.
Smart money management is the most popular theme among the teams, it said.
The 37 teams can be categorized into seven themes: lending, smart money management, blockchain, real estate, insurance technology, compliance and payment, the institute said.
Among them, 14 teams are committed to smart money management, it said.
While most teams are Taiwanese, there are six from Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines, the institute said.
There were initially 106 separate spaces, called cubes, in the coworking space, Luo Chih-shan (羅至善), a section manager of the institute’s digital service innovation division, told the Taipei Times.
Because more teams applied to work in the coworking space than expected, the number of cubes was increased to 120, Luo said.
Taiwan Financial Service Roundtable, a cofounder of FinTechSpace, which was formally opened yesterday, said that the aim of the space is not only to foster innovation and the growth of domestic financial institutions, but also to open the window for the nation’s fintech industry and attract talent from around the world.
Domestic financial institutions are this year expected to invest a total of NT$13.83 billion (US$448.84 million) in fintech development, an increase of 25.9 percent from last year, Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said at the opening ceremony.
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