Skolkovo reports that Russia has become one of the leaders in the prevalence of fintech services – Economy and Business
MOSCOW, November 23. / TASS /. The penetration rate of fintech services in Russia is 80%, ours is the world leader in the use of contactless payments, Pavel Novikov told TASS of the innovation center at the Skolkovo financial fund.
“The level of penetration of fintech services in our country is 82%. Russia also ranks first in the world in the use of contactless payments, which is about 10% of the proceeds of all 3,100 Skolkovo residents,” Novikov said.
According to Skolkovo resident Dsight, the volume of venture capital investments in the first half of 2021 in Russia amounted to $ 1 billion. Investments in fintech during the same period amounted to 78 million in eight transactions. For comparison, the global volume of venture capital investments in the first half of 2021 was $ 291 billion, according to CBInsights. For 2020, there were more than 400 fintech startups in Russia, every month 5-6 fintech companies undergo expertise and the status of a Skolkovo participant.
According to Novikov, there are many specific fintechs, “banks, insurance companies, brokers, exchanges, regulators, venture funds and technology companies are involved.” At the same time, fintech companies by their nature “disrupt” banks, they play against banks and eat off “pieces” from them, destroy old models due to hyper-automation, artificial intelligence (AI), speed and better understanding of the needs of the end user.
“Russia has historically developed a unique environment in which leading banks are often not inferior to startups in terms of their range of services. – explained the expert.
Main market technologies
Skolkovo identifies neobanks and payment services, financial marketplaces and embedded finance, personal finance management, loyalty program solutions, secure data processing, cybersecurity, automated banking processes and cloud technologies among the main areas of which Russian banks are currently included.
Skolkovo acts as a partner in the creation and implementation of an innovative strategy. This is not only digitalization, but also a strategy for working with data, customers and employees, investments. We help change culture and processes within the corporation, and then select the right tools to implement an innovative strategy. In other words, we provide not only a design project, but together we “build”, finance and are responsible for the result, ”Novikov said.
So, corporations can, when introducing innovations, as a rule, bear serious risks, assume that the project will be financed on a parity basis: 50 to 50. / VR), 5G, quantum computing.
According to Novikov, there are several main tools for introducing innovations for corporations that the fund offers. Tools can be roughly divided into tactical and strategic. For example, a competition, hackathon, meetup, strategy session, workshop are quick tactical tools, and launching an R&D center, venture studio or corporate fund are strategic tools. Over the past two years, the Skolkovo Foundation has launched more than 50 programs aimed at introducing innovations in corporations and developing the startup ecosystem.
Skolkovo corporate accelerators
The corporate accelerator, as noted in Skolkovo, is one of the most popular tools among corporations. The result of the work, most often, is the launch of a pilot with a startup. As part of the accelerator, work is carried out to collect requests, called “digital check-up”, and a company map is drawn up, which we then look for solutions – technology companies that help solve business problems.
For example, Skolkovo and Rosselkhozbank have launched a program for the selection of projects at the junction of fintech and agricultural technology. 350 companies took part in it, 10 of them were finalists, 6 companies successfully implemented their projects with RSHB. For example, Agroservice has improved the process of purchasing farm animals in a digital format, and the Tenzor Fields team has implemented the innovative Harvest Forecast service on the Own Farming platform.
In cooperation with Sovcombank, Skolkovo launched two projects – Digital Checkup and a hackathon to find highly qualified employees: system analysts and Java developers. And in partnership with BCS, he conducted a market research to find requests for new banking services from small and medium-sized businesses. So, everyone wants to know: what does the client want? What product to make? With those accepted? All these questions are answered by the in-house food factory.
“We have just completed the selection of innovative projects for the VTB corporate accelerator. Out of 677 applications, 22 companies have reached the final and are already training pilots for a number of programs: digital customer paths, customer service services, non-banking services for B2C clients, automation of internal processes, solutions “in the field of cybersecurity, digital solutions for retail business, services for dealing with arrears,” Novikov said.
New financial instruments
Now the majority of corporations, including banks, Novikov said, form digital strategies. And they highlight the topic of working with big data. Making the right decisions based on big data sets requires specialists, new approaches and solutions. For example, together with VTB Skolkovo launched the Data Fusion initiative, which is a competition for the best teams and conferences of specialists in.
“According to our data, in Russia there are only 50 thousand different levels of data analysts. About 10 thousand of them can be attributed to data scientists who are engaged not only in systems analysis, but use advanced methods and algorithms of machine learning for data analysis. – the representative of the fund said there are about a thousand of these 10 thousand specialists in Data Fusion technology.
Among the winners, for example, are the models that are the most effective at predicting brands and product categories. And blank models for subsequent use in the bank of recommendation, scoring systems to optimize the work with the enrichment of the user’s digital footprint.
In the future, according to Novikov, Skolkovo will bring several new services to the market. In particular, this is the study of markets, trends, technologies in a broad sense. Based on the results of such a study, for example, a company will be able to make an informed decision to take over a particular business. The fund can select candidate companies for mergers or acquisitions (M&A) and conduct investment and technological expertise, significantly reducing the investor’s risk in innovation.
Skolkovo is already implementing a project to launch a venture studio for one of the main banks in the country. There are ten venture studios currently running in Russia at different stages of development. The model is complex and requires a significant investment from the investor and immersion in the activities of portfolio companies. The Skolkovo team can significantly simplify the life of both a startup and an investor by taking on some of the tasks. Our goal is to become a leader among venture studio operators, by analogy with the corporate accelerator market, “Novikov concluded.