The success story continues: only Estonian companies represent the Baltics in Mastercard’s financial technology accelerator

In spring, Mastercard’s Lighthouse partnership will commence for the fourth time, which will provide smart fintechs with an opportunity to develop their product in cooperation with banks and investors. In this year’s programme, the Baltics are represented by five Estonian startups, which are competing with solutions from Denmark and Norway.

“According to the Global Fintech Rankings, Estonia ranks among the Top 10 fintech countries globally. Since there are many innovators in this field in the Baltics, choosing just five Baltic companies among other strong candidates was extremely difficult. For example, we started the first Lighthouse accelerator in 2018, and during this time, over 100 companies have applied to participate in the accelerator in the Baltics. This time, five Estonian companies made it into the programme, which is why we are excitedly awaiting the commencement of the cooperation programme,” said SEB’s Innovation Manager Siim Lepisk. This year’s Lighthouse competition will simultaneously commence in Copenhagen, Oslo and Tallinn.

“Every Lighthouse programme has shown that Nordic and Baltic companies are innovators in the payment field which, in turn, confirms the importance of cooperation platforms such as Lighthouse. Selecting 15 companies from all the applicants was a difficult decision, but we are really looking forward to the upcoming cooperation with the region’s most promising fintechs in the spring,” said the Head of Digital Development and Fintech Engagement of Mastercard in the Baltics and Nordics, Mats Taraldsson.

15 of the companies participating in this year’s Lighthouse programme have been chosen because of their innovative, scalable, and most importantly, impactful solutions. Together with Mastercard, banks, NFT Ventures and Lighthouse’s legal, tech, and strategy experts hope to bring truly collaborative results to the field of finance that will affect our everyday banking in the future.

Meet the Lighthouse Spring Class of 2020:

Estonia (The Baltics):

• Salv – system for banks for fighting financial crime
• Montonio – hire-purchase solution for online merchants
• Supplierplus – financing purchase invoices
• Costpocket – digitalisation of receipts and their automatic import into accounting
• Hive.id – digital identity wallet and login tool

Denmark: Penni.io, Shopbox, Pie systems, Unwire, Cardlay

Norway: Myvoice, Strise, Lucidtech, Aprila, Keyless

All 15 companies will participate in local workshops during March and April, and in joint workshops at SEB’s Tallinn Innovation Centre and also in the Latitude59 conference in May. Companies that show the most remarkable development during the programme will receive an opportunity to perform at Europe’s most important fintech conference Money 20/20, which will be held in Amsterdam in June. Europe’s top fintech leaders and bank managers visit the event every year. The best presenter at Money 20/20 will receive a sponsored invitation to the “MasterCard Start Path” presentation day in New York.

More information:

Evelin Allas
Communications Manager
Marketing and Communications Division
SEB Pank

Phone: +372 665 5649
Mobile: +371 511 1718
Address: Tornimäe 2, 15010 Tallinn
E-mail: evelin.allas@seb.ee