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NexChange Wants to Become the LinkedIn for the Financial Services Industry

by Fintechnews Switzerland October 28, 2015

Headquartered in New York, NexChange has recently released the beta version of its mobile application, a social network designed exclusively for financial services industry with a mission to unite the global financial community by enabling professionals to connect and share.

Created by financial services professionals for financial services professionals, NexChange is led by a team of top banking and tech executives.

Among its board members: Paul Scibetta, former CEO of JP Morgan Asia; Geoffrey Prentice, Founding Member of Skype; Bart Chilton, former Commissioner at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Engee Chen, former CEO of Yahoo Asia; Yong Hak Huh, Former CIO of Private Markets, HKMA.

Juwan Lee, Founder and CEO of NexChange

NexChange’s founder and CEO Juwan Lee is himself a banking veteran with over 30 years of financial services experience managing porfolios on behalf of hedge funds, proprietary trading and asset managers.

Prior to NexChange, Lee worked for JP Morgan in a variety of roles from principal investments to heading equity within the asset management division, and was the former Chief Investment Officer for the international division of Shanghai’s largest asset management firm.

Now with NexChange, Lee wants to turn his social network into the one stop destination for financial professionals by bringing content, connection and chatting in a single app.

“The problem we have today is that we have a lot of noise with networks and that whenever you look at your contacts, [there are] very different industries, but people within financial services want to connect with other people in the same industry,” Lee explained in an interview with Dragon Law.

In this sense, NexChange solves many of the problems with current social networks, which are said to be too generic.

“The typical user is trying to save time. [With NexChange] they are going to be able to go on the app and do a number of things: they will be able to get news, they can chat, they can connect, and they don’t have to go to three or four different apps.”

How it works

Similarly to other professional social networks, users first need to create a profile on NexChange and indicate their work experience, education and background. They can then connect with other professionals, chat, and share news and updates.

Among the app’s features, users can create a customized content stream from financial news sources. This content feed “[acts] like a special vertical within LinkedIn, without the noise,” Nancy Miller, NexChange Managing Editor, told Bank Innovation. She further said the social network “will be a place to find mentors and facilitate career moves.”

Other main features include a career heat map that allows users to compare themselves with peers, as well as an events calendar that provides curated lists of events for the financial services industry. Events can be save for later or share with other connections.

Additionally, professionals can easily keep up with the markets and access financial data such as quotes for stocks and global indices through the “Charts” icon.

NexChange is currently at the seed funding stage and is about to close the round, Lee said.

NexChange is headquartered in New York, home of its marketing, product, content, creative and business developments teams. In Hong Kong, the startup has its technology, business development, finance and operations teams and is looking to double its staff by the end of 2016.

Watch NexChange’s presentation video: