The awarded idea, presented during the final qualification round on 17 October 2019 in Vienna, is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) based digital cash platform enabling transactions with tokenised euro stored on blockchain.

In the Elevator Lab program, Billon will demonstrate its proven technology, showcasing the capability to mint, transfer and redeem regulated currency on a distributed ledger. The Polish-British fintech will work with RBI to use the platform for interbank or intercompany transfers of funds and settlement with digitised euro. Later, the scope of work can be expanded with mass payouts of funds from corporates to individuals, merchant accounts for e-commerce and e-money accounts for individual customers

“Participation in the Elevator Lab program is a chance to forge a partnership with a large international finance institution and a leading bank in Central and Eastern Europe, something that Billon aspired to since the company was created. Seeing RBI’s eagerness to implement innovative technologies, I am confident this collaboration will have a very strong and positive effect on our business,” says Wojtek Kostrzewa, CEO of Billon Group.

The Elevator Lab program seeks partnerships with the best fintech startups operating in central and eastern Europe and offering, among others, fintech and AI solutions. This year, over 280 companies registered for the third edition of the program. In addition to Billon, five companies finally qualified to the acceleration phase: Uhura Solutions from Montenegro (using AI to verify and draft contracts), imVision from Israel (an API security platform), Minna from Sweden (subscription management for online banking systems), Quantoz from the Netherlands (blockchain payments for IoT devices), and Nayax from Israel (cashless payments).

“We have selected Billon as an Elevator Lab participant because Raiffeisen Bank International is interested in applications of the distributed ledger technology. Over the next months, we will be testing Billon’s solution and evaluating the potential added value for our customers,” says Maximilian Schausberger, head of fintech partnerships at Raiffeisen Bank International.

In the next few months, companies participating in the partnership program must create a proof of concept, showing that their technology can work with RBI’s systems and processes and generate added value for the bank. Billon and other finalists will present their PoC in Vienna on Demo Day, scheduled to take place on March 5, 2020. On this basis, RBI will evaluate possible cooperation.

“In the following months, we will take part in monthly acceleration workshops in Vienna. This will help us adapt our idea to the bank's internal structure and regulatory requirements in Austria,” adds Wojtek Kostrzewa.