Finance Montréal announces the winners of the FinTech Montréal 2013 Conference contests

A finance and information technology hub: 1 day, 5 contests, $50,000 in prizes

MONTREAL, May 17, 2013 /CNW Telbec/ - More than 250 participants from the combined finance and information technology fields came together at the Mont-Royal Centre yesterday for the first edition of the FinTech Montréal Conference, under the honorary presidency of Mr. Henri-Paul Rousseau, Vice-Chairman, Power Financial Corporation. The goal of the conference was to help discover new talent, create networking opportunities, and contribute to the visibility of Montréal's financial technology expertise.

Keynote speakers

The speakers featured at the event drew considerable interest from conference delegates and included Michael E. Roach, President and CEO of CGI, Léo Apotheker, former President of Hewlett-Packard and SAP, and Jeff Rubin, former Chief Economist with CIBC World Markets.

David Furlonger, Vice-President of Gartner, moderated a panel discussion alongside Pierre Miron, Executive Vice-President, Operations and Information Technology, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Robert Ouellette, Senior Vice-President, Shared Services and General Director, Technology Desjardins Group, and Mr. Apotheker.

Contest winners

The conference ended with a cocktail reception, where the winners of the event's five contests were announced. During the day, the finalists in each category presented a video describing their financial software application. The evaluation criterias of the jury members were innovation and novelty, usefulness, and quality of the solution in terms of versatility and marketing potential.

"Finance Montréal is proud to have offered $50,000 in prize money to the winners of its five contests promoting the development of financial software applications among corporate developers and graduate students," stated Eric Lemieux, Chief Executive Officer of Finance Montréal.

Three Montréal businesses were declared winners in the 2013 FinTech Montréal Développeurs corporatifs category:

• Mobeewave won in the first category, sponsored by CGI, with the theme of payment hubs, mobile banking or business intelligence. Maxime de Nanclas, CEO of Mobeewave, presented an innovative mobile payment solution that transforms a phone or tablet into a secure terminal. This solution revolutionizes the world of payment offering simplicity, security and mobility to marchands.
• Traderific won in the second category, sponsored by Jitneytrade, with the theme of automated algorithmic trading strategy on equity. Philip Miresco, Founder of Traderific, presented an automated negotiation strategy algorithm that automatically generates free daily stock advice applicable to all types of stocks, including Canadian.
• Inovestor won in the third category, sponsored by the Montréal Institute of Structured Finance and Derivatives (IFSID), with the theme of an application related to derivatives. Pascal Lefrançois, President of Inovestor, presented an options simulator for multi-leg strategies on Canadian markets.

Yann Bilodeau, a doctoral student in Finance at HEC Montréal, was the winner of the 2013 Montréal FinTech contest in the Relève universitaire category, sponsored by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, with the theme of structured and unstructured data. Mr. Bilodeau presented a software application that makes high-frequency data available for research purposes.

William Sanger, a student at Polytechnique Montréal, won the 2013 Montréal FinTech contest in the Découverte category, sponsored by Heenan Blaikie. Mr. Sanger presented his application, which estimates stock market behavior based on a mean-variance model via unstructured data (Twitter). The Découverte prize is awarded to the finalist who submitted the highest-scoring software application for innovativeness, all contests combined, but who did not win a prize in the 2013 Montréal FinTech contests.

Other sponsors

The 2013 Montréal FinTech Conference, in partnership with TechnoMontréal, is proud to include many other key finance and information technology groups among its sponsors and exhibitors, including Analystik, Autorité des marchés financiers, Croesus Finansoft, Desjardins Group, Finance et Investissement, FinlogiK, Fondaction, Hill+Knowlton Stratégies, Inovestor, Interactive Brokers, Investissement Québec, Laurentian Bank, Maples Fund Services, Montréal Exchange, National Bank, Power Financial Corporation, SAS Canada, softTarget, and ZEROSPAM.

For more information about the 2013 Montréal FinTech Conference, please visit our Web site at http://www.fintechMontréal.ca, follow us on Twitter @FinTechMTL, or visit our Facebook page and FinTech Montréal Conference LinkedIn group.

About Finance Montréal, Québec's financial cluster

Finance Montréal was created in November 2010 by the financial services industry, at the Quebec Government's invitation, and its members include banks and financial corporations, government bodies (the Quebec Government, the City of Montréal, the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal, and the AMF-Québec's financial market regulator and supervisor), and universities. Finance Montréal works in the field of human resources and derivatives in order to strengthen the financial sector and achieve greater international competitiveness.

Image with caption: "The speakers featured at the 2013 Montréal FinTech Conference drew considerable interest from conference delegates. (CNW Group/Finance Montréal)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20130517_C8167_PHOTO_EN_26885.jpg

Image with caption: "Finance Montréal offered $50,000 in prize money to the winners of its five contests (CNW Group/Finance Montréal)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20130517_C8167_PHOTO_EN_26883.jpg

SOURCE: Finance Montréal

To learn more about Finance Montréal - Quebec's financial cluster, visit their website at www.grappefinanceMontréal.com/en, write to manuela.steis@cfiMontréal.com, or call Manuela Steis, Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer, at 514-287-1477, ext. 323.

For any questions about the 2013 Montréal FinTech Conference, write to [email protected], or call one of the following members of our Organizing Committee: Laurent Terrasse, at 514-871-3534, or Stéphanie Alison Berthiaume, at 514-787-6515.