The 2015 Innotribe Startup Challenge held by SWIFT has been won by a blockchain start-up Hyperledger, which beat all other finalists to get the $50,000 prize.

Over 500 judges representing financial, technology and investment communities selected it from 370 submissions as a start-up promising to provide an important innovation for the future of the financial industry.

Hyperledger provides a real-time settlement for individuals, companies and financial institutions “to move value across the world as quickly and easily as sending an email.” It uses replicated shared ledgers technology paying attention to the problems of identity and compliance, and is claimed to be flexible enough to integrate with existing systems and regulations.

Unlike many other decentralised ledger platforms, the start-up has no native cryptocurrency. It also provides its users with an opportunity to create multiple ledgers for different asset classes and can be used for smart contracts.

In June Hyperledger was listed in a Santander Innoventures report among the start-ups actively developing new ways to exchange data and assets, along with Ethereum, Eris Industries10 and Ripple. The latter recently launched its Interledger protocol, which is also aimed at connecting multiple ledgers and solving the problem of compliance.

The Innotribe Startup Challenge competition was started by SWIFT in 2011 “to bridge the gap between the financial services industry and today’s brightest startups” by organising regional showcases worldwide.

In his recent interview, the CEO of SWIFT appreciated the blockchain technology as a challenger for the whole banking sector. He argued that the technology was likely to push banks to work hard to keep up, but not to replace banks as such.


Maria Rudina