The Norwegian fintech scene is growing

As fintech is becoming a hot topic with venture investments tripling from 2008 through 2013. and in 2014 $102 billion in financial activity was observed across a variety of investment types. Norway is also starting to see a thriving fintech community emerging. Notable companies include:

mCash is a mobile payment solution offering P2P-payments, both online and offline payments through QR-codes as well as merchant services through a mobile POS-system. mCash has chosen a low tech solution which requires no new hardware on the merchant side. The company collaborates with BN Bank in Norway and received 43 MNOK in series A funding through Northzone and Entrée Capital in 2014. Learn more at mCash.

Edgefolio is a marketing platform that reverses the way investor connect to hedge funds by enabling investors to search for suitable funds through their platform. Edgefolio has raised $575 000 in seed capital through Betafactory and a consortium of angel investors. Learn more at Edgefolio.

Meawallet delivers cloud based security solutions for mobile payments through HCE and tokenization. Meawallet aims to offer a white label security platform to both banks as well as offerings bank level security as part of mobile access services for other industries. Meawallet is currently partnering with pilot banks such as First Investment Bank AD. Learn more at Meawallet.

Zwipe offers biometric security for cards through fingerprint authenticated payment cards. The company entered an agreement with MasterCard in the fall of 2014 to deliver fingerprint authentication to Mastercards contactless payment cards. The technology is based on low energy fields, which allows the card to harvest energy from the payment terminals. Learn more at Zwipe.

Encap Security turns personal devices into security credentials to replace two-factor authentication services. Encap is offering white label solutions to primarily financial services companies, in particular banks and payment players looking to provide mobile and online financial services to consumers. The company secured 2 MUSD in seed funding from Proventure in 2013. Learn more at Encap Security.

Banq launched february 2015 and is a membership service promising to renegotiate interest rates for all member collectively, and also switch bank if necessary for its members. The funders have their background from DNB and Nets. Read more at Banq.

KolibriFX offers apps that allow traders to test different strategies and set up parameters to make those trades in real time. The company is offering buy-side firms a platform and APIs to analyse historical and real-time data streams to identify, test and trade on alpha-signals as well as offering components for sophisticated pricing, autohedging and data analysis to sell-side customers. Learn more at KolibriFX.

Lettspart.no is a mobile savings platform that promises and easy and fun way to save money for you, your family and friends. The service offers both regular savings as well as goal-specific savings such as holidays and gifts. Learn more at lettspart.no

Risk-Partner is developing add-on software for ERP-platforms which will change how companies manage B2B credit risk. The company aims to create new ways to leverage cash-flow and liquidity issues through automated algorithmic equations and by integrating factoring solutions. The company recently signed its first client contracts in the Norwegian market and is currently in dialogue with several potential partners and clients. Learn more at Risk-Partner.

Islero is platform for sharing investment research by connecting analysts and traders. Learn more at Islero.

Bidra.no is a Norwegian crowdfunding platform for charitable causes. Learn more at bidra.no.

QuantAlliance promises to deliver quantitative algorithmic trading for Forex and Commodities. Learn more at QuantAlliance.

Fronteer Solutions promises to deliver portfolio solutions for institutional investors and self-service tools directly to end customersn. Learn more at Fronteer Solutions.

Valyou is a mobile payment solution based on contactless NFC on the Android platform. Valyou is developed in collaboration between the telecom and banking sector and is owned by SpareBank 1, DNB and Telenor. The solution is directly tied to your bank account and the secure element is SIM-based. Learn more at Valyou.

Strex is a joint venture for ​payment solutions for mobile phones between the largest telcos in Norway. The partnership makes the solutions available to all customers, regardless of which carrier the customer has selected. Strex was previously know as mPayment. Learn more at Strex.

Evry Innovation lab is a department within Evry, Norways largest ICT Company. While not technically a fintech-startup the business unit shows a lot of promise through Spendific, wich launched at Finovate Europe 2015. Evry has extensive sector knowledge with over two decades of develpoing and hosting solutions for the financial sector. Learn more at Evry Innovation Lab.

Other notable companies delivering solutions to the financial sector include Banqsoft which provides software to the financial sector, BankAxept which provides payment solutions and BankID which provides authentication services, where the two latter are fully owned by the banks.

Please let me know if there are other companies that should be on this list.