The two companies battled it out with eight other contestants to win the prize, with each firm giving five minute pitches to a pre-selected audience of investors, bankers and consultants on Wednesday afternoon.

Truaxis, formerly BillShrink, presented its StatementRewards system, which analyses customer's recurring bills to offer better deals via their online banking site.

Singapore-based GuardTime's software generates keyless signatures to provide a provable audit trail for electronic data including proof of time, origin and integrity.