This year I was only able to afford one day for Sibos, so of course I chose to go on the day when Innotribe, the part of SWIFT dedicated to promoting innovation in payments technology, held its finals for its StartUp Challenge.  But I heard, when I arrived, that even in the “main” halls of the event, that financial inclusion was getting serious attention.  Maybe that’s what Bill Gates’ presence can do to even the sometimes staid audience of Sibos…but I don’t think so, I think there really is a recognition that this is a key time for both the financial sector and the payments industry.  It’s “put up or shut up” time – figure out how to level the playing field so that small transactions and smaller businesses aren’t unduly penalized, or become the Polaroid of the 21st century, when the innovators take technology already available and take all this business away from today’s big boys.So, what did I encounter?  First, let’s talk the StartUp Challenge.  In the first group of 9 “startup” category competitors, the following caught my eye:TransferGo (www.transfergo.com ) – a platform offering (they claimed) the fastest, cheapest real time international money transfer.  Working already with 25 banks in Europe, and with the likes of Twitter and Square (and Ripple, if I caught it correctly), led by a very impressive young entrepreneur Daumantas Dvilinskas (already having founded and sold successful tech firms) and backed by Level 39 from London.  They started with P2P, but are rolling out SME payments services now at 30 bps for same day payments, next day if merchant settlement is required.   They’re interested in broadening their sphere of activities.  Lendstar (www.lendstar.io ) – initially I thought this was just a middle class European consumer play.  Its present focus is on young people financing each other through existing social network platforms, growing out from their start in Germany.  The basics are an offer of real time money transfer via either a mobile wallet or prepaid credit card, providing detailed documentation with an overview of all financial transactions for each participant.  OK, clever, but so what?  But when I talked to the principles, such as Christopher Kampshoff, CEO, they said that emerging markets interest them a lot.  To me, taking traditional social group financing structures and giving them a way to go on-line in digital form should be much more powerful, and potentially more profitable than helping young Bavarians buy a new BMW convertible through Facebook.  So maybe with the right incentives, the Lendstar folks could move this into helping self-help group structures in places like West Africa, India, etc, optimize their efficiencies and link better to wider financial systems.Epiphyte (www.epiphyte.us ) – these folks won the audience’s vote in the startup category…they provide plumbing that let banks integrate with digital currencies in managing payments.  Why is this important?  This might be a bridge for both the banks and SWIFT to move to 21st century technology in managing payments, lowering costs and, if the users are clever, making smaller ticket clients potentially much more viable.  Epiphyte says they can work with all bank channel products including existing mobile banking offerings.  I can see why they won, but with a focus on consumer finance and signing up Tier1 banks as their priority, they’re not my priority…Ensygnia (www.ensygnia.com ) – their “Onescan”  technology brings Amazon-style one-click purchasing to potentially every retailer and shopper.  They’ve come out of BBCLabs, which gives them an “in” to the Beeb’s ecommerce offerings, to start.  While technically a startup, they’re well backed enough that they could buy another startup, Snaptaps, which gave them products feeds from 70 major brands.  Not an emerging market mention in their presentation, but one can see how this could really help middle income country banks wishing to expand their payments offerings to the SME and mid-market segment.  In the “innovator” category for slightly more established firms, I was pleased to see our old friends from Advanced Merchant Payments, who gave a very good accounting of their growing work in helping banks provide merchant credit in southeast Asia (and new startup in the UK).  They are articulating a very clear vision today of being a service provider for the banking sector, which is very different from the way this market is developing with Kabbage, OnDeck Capital, etc, in the US market, where the innovators are working to dis-intermediate the banks.   They’ve been featured here before, but just a reminder that you can find out more at www.advanced-pay.com .     Also saw a number of Finovate alumni here, which I hadn’t noticed last year.   The ones that most interested were:MatchMove (www.mmvpay.com ) – they won the category, and while they weren’t my top vote, I can see why they scored highest.  These folks are making mobile wallets really work.  For those not more familiar with this turf, mobile wallets have been hyped for some time, but I have seen few really used.  These folks, based in Singapore and starting with the Asia market, seem to have finally got the formula right.  An attractive, consumer and merchant-friendly product design, links to the major card networks (AMEX was an early backer, and then all the other majors came on board), and the ability to put together a customized branded wallet for any bank, anywhere, in 8 weeks, fully compliant with the AMEX and others’ standards for security and AML.  Anyone with a smartphone can have credit card services, including loyalty programs.  They’re already partnered with online brands, mobile operators, media and entertainment companies with over 250 million users.  Most of these are, of course, the better-off – but their design lessons are valuable for making this work closer to the base of the pyramid.  Mambu (www.mambu.com ) – a cloud based core banking platform that might actually work, at a price that small FIs actually can afford (thousands, rather than millions, with a subscription based pricing system)?  That might actually be installable in weeks?  This sort of thing cannot be ground-truthed in a 10 minute session, but they are working already with the likes of Lenddo, FINCA, Opportunity International and the Grameen Foundation.  105 customers in 30 countries so far.  Juntos Finanzas (www.juntosfinanzas.com ) – targeting the 1.9 million dormant accounts world-wide, this very interesting company partners with banks to help them more effectively onboard their new clients, so that both profit from the new relationship.  They’ve got impressive results from a pilot in Colombia with 40,000 clients of a large regional bank (32% increase in active client rate and 50% increase in average balances), soon to roll out to another 200,000 customers in 4 countries.  They are SMS-based (“automated messaging”), and have a sophisticated system for improving customer care operations using this communications channel.  Not SME per se, but extremely clever, and perhaps there are small business extensions possible with this model.Fastacash (www.fastacash.com ) – a B2B platform enabling value to be transferred digitally in any form (money, commodities, etc).  Strong interest in emerging markets from their Singapore base.  They’re working with Oxigen in India, Techcomm Bank in Vietnam…the require both parties to be banked, as they have to ride on the AML/CFT of the banks’ systems.  I like the look and feel, and the interest in emerging markets (HQ is in Singapore).   see the websites of each of the companies for more... matt