chennai if you cant beat them join them is a common adage one that todays financial institutions are taking very seriously as they jostle for space with indian it majors for a chunk of the startup innovation pieblockchain chatbots speechtotext predictive analytics risk management robotic kiosks are just a few of the exciting areas employing cuttingedge technology some of these labs become virtual stock exchanges with mocktrading carried out at highfrequencies in nano seconds axis bank societe generale and swiss re have their own innovation labs and accelerators to help startups betatest their ideas find funding and access clients edelweiss kotak mahindra dcb bank are among other financial institutions who are trying to collaborate with startups by running contests and giving them space for their pilotrunsinsurtech accelerator programme a global fintech accelerator programme conducted by swiss re is looking at internet of things iot systems of engagement and smart analytics as many as six startups have been selected for swiss res programmeswiss re has selected startup ekincare an online platform that helps users monitor critical medical information and stores health records in a cloud and goqii a startup that has developed a smart wearable to track ones walking sleep and any other physical activity the swiss reinsurer is also looking at aryaai which is involved in aritifical intelligence and nikiai an aipowered botanother company swiss re is looking at fostering is touchkin a predictive health care platform that uses machine learning and an ai chatbot to track mobile usage patterns and trigger alerts if something is wrongin an age where the pokemon frenzy is touching new heights its not just video gamers who are getting excited about artificial intelligence ai ai machine learning and big data are among the top focus areas for socgens 8 startups that are part of its accelerator programme last month french multinational societe generales unit socgen global solution centre sggsc launched catalyst a startup accelerator program for indian startups in partnership with nasscomand in the world where high finance meets innovation axis bank has launched a thought factory to promote design thinking among startups indias third largest private lender by assets says its design lab in bengaluru has helped startups finetune their ideas we are looking at areas like blockchain biometrics ekycs says rajiv anand executive director retail banking axis bank which is working with nasscom 10k tech partners various vc partners and global banksyoung hackers who are eager to pit their skills against the worlds most secure domains might find an outlet for their energies in some of the hackathons that banks and organisations like the national payments corporation of india host security in mobile payments online transactions is another area of highpriority for us we get hackers to attack our systems to see if they can find chinks in our armour says axis anandai big data cloud analytics sound very cool but ground reality is adoption and whether it solves my customers needs startups come up with a lot of good ideas