New enterprises of the finance world – Fintech startups – answer the challenges of the 21st century in digital language. They are not just experts in finance but in technology as well, therefore they can react to the market’s and clients’ demands much quicker.

Hungary’s Fintech sector is teeming with good ideas. Cointelegraph takes a look at some promising, internationally successful Fintech companies.

IND Group and the digital banking experience

Founded in 1997, IND Group provides integrated front-office solutions mainly to banks and financial institutions. IND is a prosperous Central European company, winning one professional award after another. Different solutions such as mobile-apps and websites are able to connect to their self-developed front-end platform. We can typically meet the company’s products when we use internet banking.

People’s aversion toward banks usually stem from the fact that banks think in terms of products – therefore we clients do not feel the process is personal. This is what IND aims to change. Accessibility, comprehensibility, usability and security. These are the aspects that they consider most important while continuously building online interfaces of mobile and internet banking.

In 2014 IND was taken over by the world’s leading financial software company Misys. Since then IND functions as a separate division of the London-based company. The goals did not change, user experience is still the crucial point.

Shinrai and the Bitcoin ATM in a Budapest ruin pub

Shinrai is another company that was founded in Budapest but is now controlled from London – they are a Fintech startup fighting for widespread Bitcoin use. They operate Hungary’s first online Bitcoin exchange Mr. Coin, and they installed the country’s first Bitcoin ATM in one of the most popular ruin pubs of Budapest in August of 2014.

With their marketing strategies, they target the Millennials because this generation is the most open towards the world of digital currency. Although they relocated their headquarters to the British capital they still have strong connections with the Central European region, and Mr.Coin services many clients from those regions of the planet that allow bank transfers. The platform developed by the company offers an easy and safe place to exchange virtual currency.

For us Europeans it is hard to imagine that in certain parts of the world not all people have bank accounts. Shinrai believes that everyone should have access to such basic financial services, even if their home country yet lacks the required infrastructure. It seems evident to use a Bitcoin account in such cases, which you require just a smartphone and an app downloaded – it seems so obvious, yet it isn’t.

Realising the problem Shinrai developed a payment platform that encourages banks and financial service providers to join. With the help of this platform they can connect themselves – and the advanced western world – to the economies of developing countries. The secret to Shinrai’s success is not just innovation, but the idea of commitment to predictability and sustainability.

Seon and I’m not a robot

Online scams are a booming business, but there is a Hungarian startup that aims to filter out hackers and prevent the damage caused by them. The API developed by Seon helps in any online transactions when there is a need to identify the user such as web-based registrations and logins.

Seon primarily provides a secure environment for websites and sites that handle financial transactions, but beyond e-commerce it is also able to filter out bots in online voting.

The program constructs a profile of the user based on hundreds of variables such as IP addresses, email addresses, credit card numbers, publicly shared social media content, and it also recognises users behind VPN networks. An important part of the software is that it monitors the client's previous purchases, the location of these transactions, and the devices used. Personal data is of course handled in the strictest, most secure means. Based on the collected data, the system estimates the risk of the user and their initiated transactions. The client is then able to oversee the users’ profiles on the admin interface and can block the suspicious ones.

Being a new startup, API is still in the beta-testing phase but it is free for anyone to try in the first month, afterwards you need to pay $0.03 per transaction. The low price is to establish competitiveness but we hope that based on user feedback and experience we can soon share Seon’s international success with you.

Tresorit and the $50.000 prize

The Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security, or CrySyS Lab for short operates in the Department of Networked Systems and Services at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Many startups originate from the group of young researchers, one of them is Tresorit.

Tresorit took the startup world by storm with their end-to-end encrypted cloud-based file sharing system. Tresorit’s file storage system is similar to that of Dropbox. The difference is that while Dropbox allows service provider access to files, Tresorit does not. The files uploaded to Tresorit’s cloud-based storage get encrypted while transferring and the storage therefore only contains the encrypted files. This makes it impossible for anyone – even for storage and service provider – to access these files without possessing the encryption key. This also means that users themselves may lose access if they should lose their key.

The system is currently in a beta stage, anyone can register a 5Gb free account by downloading the client software from the company’s website. Currently they are testing the base systems, meaning that they will incorporate much of the user feedback to the final product. Amongst the plans is a new management interface that will allow bigger companies to incorporate and operate the system.

Tresorit offers a $50.000 bounty for anyone that can gain access to simulated client data stored in a separate server. More than 1000 hackers have tried yet none of them have succeeded. The offer still stands, so give it a shot!

By Laura Somfai

Prepared with the help of http://www.bitcoinbazis.hu