An interesting event was held yesterday at the premises of the FinTech Impact Accelerator BeFinnovative, regarding alternative forms of financing for Startups and more "traditional" companies with an emphasis on so-called crowdfunding.

The presentation began with the presentation of the new iBank Pay. It concerns an integrated payment and collection service via NBG Smartphones. It covers P2P money transfers to the users of the service, to partner organizations and payments to stores.

Small and medium-sized merchants are offered the opportunity to accept payments via Smartphones from their customers. Either directly on their own mobile phone, or through the cash register, or through the POS of the National Bank.

In a short time, iBank Pay will be offered as an easy and direct payment method for e-commerce. The partnership with Yummy Wallet, a smartphone refund service aimed at students, was also announced.

Στην συνέχεια ο Michael Gebert, σύμβουλος της CrowdPolicy για θέματα Crowdsourcing και Crowdfunding περιέγραψε τις μεγάλες αλλαγές αλλά και τις ευκαιρίες και τις δυνατότητες χρηματοδότησης που υπάρχουν για ιδιώτες, φοιτητές, για Startuppers, αλλά και για μεγάλες επιχειρήσεις, μέσα από τις δεκάδες πλατφόρμες crowdfunding που λειτουργούν.

Crowdfunding - crowdfunding

Some typical examples are the pre-sale of a product through Kickstarter or Indigogo. The venture capital crowdfunding, which brings international capital to Startups that would in no way have access to, but also the financing of an idea by scientists or even the financing of a PhD.

Multinationals and large companies use the Internet public for a series of investigations and critical decisions that can bring great profits.

For instance:

Munich Airport turned to the 50,000,000 travelers who pass by each year. The aim is to optimize the area of the stores with impressive results in terms of revenue.

Amazon uses the huge product review base on its platform. Purpose to detect fake and fake reviews through computational learning. Big problem, since about 43% of reviews on Amazon are estimated to be fake and misleading.

Sony has turned to japanese audiences. To do market research on the impact of some new products before putting them into production.

Equity Crowdfunding via iFund

In the debate moderated by Mr D. Mallas, the General Manager of Retail Banking of the National Bank of Greece, Mrs. Nelly Tzakou – Lambropoulou revealed that by April NBG's new crowdfunding platform called iFund will be activated.

Law 4416 passed last December allows crowdfunding in Greece as long as it is done through a banking institution or brokerage firm.

Το iFund θα είναι μέρος της πρωτοβουλίας συμμετοχικής χρηματοδότησης για κοινωφελείς σκοπούς, act4Greece. Θα επιτρέπει σε ιδιώτες αλλά και εταιρείες – επενδυτές να χρηματοδοτούν επιχειρήσεις έως 5.000 οι ιδιώτες και έως 30.000 οι εταιρείες.

Scaleup

The first company selected will be in the Scaleup phase. It will have a target of EUR 500 000. It will be some company in the chariot of the bank and NBG Business Seeds. NBG will also invest in it, for reasons of prestige and trust in the whole effort. Collaborations with Greek VCs are not excluded, according to the investor Mr. Aristos Doxiadis and Mr. Ion Tsakonas, CEO of PJ Tech Catalyst.

. Mr. Kyritsis, President of the Association of Members of the Athens Stock Exchange, also supported this alternative financing. It also expects the emergence of other similar platforms from the wider stock market and from the stock market itself. But mainly through the alternative market (E.N.A.).

Yiannis Gavriilidis, CEO of Covve, said that crowdfunding should also match the nature of the Startup's product or service. The product should be attractive enough to the Internet audience.

Paul Kidner of the MKO People's Trust said that social finance is the next step in microloans and microloans that give the working capital for a new idea.

. Associate Professor Yannis Charalambides of the innovation and entrepreneurship unit of the University of the Aegean He said that the possibilities offered by the new law for the creation of local crowdfunding efforts will be examined with the aim of enhancing extrovert entrepreneurship on the islands by students and not only.

Finally, Ms. Tzakou pointed out the problem of the lack of funding in existing businesses in more traditional markets. It will be solved by the recent contract signed by the National Bank with the European Investment Fund. It concerns the granting of low-interest loans of up to € 25,000 to businesses without the need for guarantees.