Assure Hedge Win Temenos Innovation Jam

In the latest series of Temenos Innovation Jams 6 companies took their place at the product demo competition taking place at the Temenos Community Forum held in Dublin”s Convention Centre on May 24th. At the event, with a keynote by An Taoiseach Leo Varadakar and attended by 1,600 bankers the main event is a demo competition involving the winners of each regional event battling it off to be crowned the top fintech demo.

Having the event in Dublin this year is a major coup for Dublin with over 1,600 of the top banking professionals in the world and it is major exposure for the winner. Thankfully we have a company flying the Irish flag with CEO Barry McCarthy from Dublin based fintech startup Assure Hedge reigning victorious in the Amsterdam version of the Jam on March 28th in ABN Amro’s HQ. Other Irish companies at the Amsterdam event included Boxever (raised €25m) and fellow NDRC graduate I-Sense Mate.

As of yet Assure Hedge is the only Irish finalist with places still up for grabs in the London and Geneva events.

By utilizing smart algorithms, Assure Hedge has developed a scalable FX hedging front end that automates the selling of foreign exchange options, providing instant automated quotes priced by the customer. This ensures fewer costs, less personnel and fewer mistakes being made by the business. The suitability and appropriateness of Assure Hedge reduce the possibility of mis-selling and the expensive consequences surrounding it. The company is a little under 2 years old and based in the quirky Dogpatch Labs in the IFSC.

As a major announcement at the end of the demo CEO Barry outlined that the company has recently received its full regulation having exited the FCA’s Sandbox in the UK. The exiting of the Sandbox means the company can now operate in all 31 EEA countries (including Ireland and the UK).

According to Barry the need for Assure Hedge’s currency hedging platform stems from research showing that businesses are rarely immune to currency rate (FX) fluctuations.  Barry points out that this is evident by the recent stats showing that in a post-Brexit environment 71% of UK exporters now see currency volatility as the single biggest threat to their business. No easy and cost-effective solution currently exists for businesses to protect their foreign currency cash flow, with solutions on offer by FX brokers and banks being fit only for institutional customers, and significantly being too costly, too complicated or simply out of reach for most businesses.

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