Accenture FinTech Innovation Lab London Launches Sixth Cohort with 32 Bank Sponsors
Accenture's FinTech Innovation Lab London began its sixth cohort on January 2, 2018, running through March 22, 2018. The three-month accelerator program selected 20 startups from the UK, Israel, Croatia, and South Korea, with a dedicated RegTech stream addressing regulatory challenges such as PSD2, GDPR, and MiFID II. Over 32 financial institutions served as sponsors and partners, including AIB, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, JPMorgan Chase, Lloyds Banking Group, Morgan Stanley, Nationwide, RBS, Santander, Societe Generale, and UBS.
These institutions provided executives to mentor startups developing solutions for compliance, fraud detection, cyber risk, blockchain security, and financial platforms. The program culminated with eight startups presenting to venture capitalists and bank executives at a March 22 graduation event. Historically, the Accenture-led labs—originating in New York in 2010 and expanding to Asia-Pacific and Dublin—have generated over 50 contracts and 800 jobs for participating startups.
The initiative reflects the broader trend of banks seeking fintech partnerships to drive innovation while leveraging their scale and regulatory expertise amid the open banking era.
- Demonstrates deepening bank-fintech collaboration model as major global banks collectively invest mentorship resources in emerging regtech and fintech startups
- Signals that regulatory pressures from PSD2, GDPR, and MiFID II are driving banks to seek external innovation partnerships rather than building compliance solutions in-house