Finlabs: the fintech programme by Bank of the West and L’Atelier BNP Paribas

What is Finlabs?

The Finlabs (unavailable link) (from “Finance” + “Laboratory”) programme aims to boost innovation by allowing the emergence of new ideas, setting up pilots, and testing these directly with Bank of the West customers, leading to the commercialisation of new products.

Finlabs will enable Bank of the West teams to detect ideas and technologies upstream that will help the bank to serve its customers even better and to build its future.

This acceleration method of L’Atelier was created two years ago by a team of former Parisian entrepreneurs, with the aim to establish partnerships with large companies that they would have liked to develop when they founded their own companies. L’Atelier’s ambitions for the programme, called BOOST in Paris, have materialised with a direct investment in a start-up and two products commercialised by BNP Paribas in twelve months. 

Building on our experience in Europe, we have adapted the concept to the unique ecosystem of Bank of the West in Silicon Valley. 

For four months, Finlabs will link up the bank with upcoming new companies with a view to deploy products directly to its customers. These new concepts will be developed by the start-up and the bank by taking an existing product and adapting it to the specific needs of Bank of the West customers. By testing the products directly with customers, the teams working on the products will get real-time feedback in order to fine-tune the products to their consumers’ uses and demands, for a fast commercial deployment on the Bank of the West market with access to BNP Paribas’s global network. 

L’Atelier designed the Finlabs programme with the aim to lose less time and resources, which can sometimes be an issue in partnerships. To ensure that the collaboration remains beneficial to both parties, best practices have been implemented: less politics, total transparency, and a focus on getting products to the market.

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