The Challenges
- Enrich customer loyalty with value-added services powered by data
- Improve transaction controls and compliance monitoring
- Create an innovative card issuing banking service
- Improve personal finance management with analytics, savings or conversational banking
- Develop payment solutions for more efficient payroll services
- Enhance online or in-app payment experience with low-cost, instant money movement that drives conversions and reduces chargebacks
- Deliver faster cross-border peer-to-peer (P2P) and direct-to-merchant payments
- Apply AI/ML to payment fraud detection
- Improve UX for complex transactions i.e. import letter of credit
- Create seamless processes for corporate treasurers with mobile authentication capabilities
- Improve customer-facing analytics for corporate treasurers to manage liquidity, exposure and risk
Special Challenge: Open Finance for Good
COVID-19 is impacting everyone across the globe. Financial services will play a vital role in helping people get through these unprecedented times and communities recover. Open Finance for Good is a special category challenging fintechs to use the available APIs to create and scale a solution that tackles the unique needs of consumers or businesses affected by the global pandemic.
Solutions submitted before the deadline will be reviewed on an ongoing basis to ensure that those with the potential to make a positive impact go live as soon as possible. All partners will support and promote as many of these Open Finance for Good solutions as possible.
Who can participate?
We would love for start-up and scale up fintechs from around the globe to join in this competition. Typical participants will have:
- At least a minimum viable product
- Customers in production
- Be a registered company
Rules
To be considered for this competition, participants must submit a solution that:
- Uses at least one API from either Finastra, Railsbank or Yolt Technology Services
- Aligns to one of the challenge areas
- Serves the UK and/or European market (it can also be a global solution)
Prizes
All 12 finalists will receive USD5000 worth of AWS Activate credits*.
Winners for the following awards will receive free API consumption**.
Awards
Best of Retail & SME Banking
Best of Payments
Best of Corporate Banking
Best of Open Finance for Good
Best use of Finastra APIs
Best use of Railsbank APIs
Best use of YTS APIs
Winners will also have the opportunity to gain exposure at client & industry events. Spotlight prizes to be announced.
*Subject to eligibility
**Railsbank and Yolt Technology Services will provide free API consumption for 6 months
capped at GBP5000. Finastra will waive the marketplace validation fee of USD5000.
Timeline
Launch
24 Aug
2020
24 Aug–
30 Oct
2020
Build
phase
Submissions
extended to
13 Dec 2020
11:59pm (GMT)
Jan
2021
Shortlist of 12
announced
Winners
live event
Jan
2021
24 Aug
2020
Launch
24 Aug -
30 Oct
2020
Build
phase
13 Dec 2020
11:59pm (GMT)
Submissions
extended to
Jan
2021
Shortlist of 12
announced
Jan
2021
Winners
live event
How to get started?
Here's what our Judges are looking for
Chirine Ben Zaied
Head of Innovation
Finastra
Nigel Verdon
Co-founder & CEO
Railsbank
Leon Muis
Chief Business Officer
YTS
Jim Wadsworth
Global Open Banking Lead
Mastercard
Sam Edge
Fintech Business Development & Strategy
AWS
JP Rangaswami
Adjunct Professor
University of Southampton
Laurel Taylor
CEO
FutureFuel.io
Chris Michael
Head of Technology
Open Banking Implementation Entity
Helen Child
CEO
Open Banking Excellence
Kevin Telford
GOFCoE
University of Edinburgh
Faith Reynolds
Independent Consumer Expert
Amit Mallick
Global Open Banking & APIs Lead
Accenture
Judging criteria
What’s Open Finance?
Open finance is an opportunity to build on the open banking framework and extend the control consumers and businesses have over their financial data. By allowing third party providers access to this data, new innovative products and services can be created that meet consumer needs today and in the future.
Open finance has the potential to create a holistic view of personal finance (e.g. pension, loans, mortgages), and also enable new capabilities in business and corporate finance.
Why is the Open Finance Appathon unique?
As open banking extends into open finance, a new wave of financial solutions from fintechs are being created and adopted across the globe. This movement extends across retail and SME banking, payments, corporate banking and more, to give consumers and businesses more control over a wider range of their financial experiences.
This is a defining moment of true collaboration, in which Finastra, Railsbank and Yolt Technology Services, with the support of the world’s leading industry community Open Banking Excellence, have partnered to provide access to a broad range of APIs to enable developers to innovate and create a range of solutions that:
- Tap into open banking payments and data APIs
- Unlock core banking systems
- Utilise banking-as-a-service capabilities
This competition is the perfect platform for integrating existing solutions or those that pass proof of concept stage, which have the potential to transform financial services. We want to see as many great solutions submitted to go to market as possible.
Register and submit now
API Deep Dives
Want to know more? Contact us: hello@openbankingexcellence.org
