International Hackathon for Banking Innovation
Last weekend, Barclays Bank organized what it claims was the largest hackathon in financial services across two continents, ever. The huge open innovation event, called Rise Hackathon: Episode II – The Bank Awakens saw 547 teams and 1,045 participants compete over 36 hours in Mumbai, India, and Manchester, UK.
Their mission was to explore the best and most innovative emerging ideas and disruptive technologies to help shape the future of banking.
The hackathon marked the first time Barclays released its APIs (application programming interfaces) to external developers. Many commentators viewed this as a clear sign of the bank’s change in focus to a more open way of innovating.
The massive hackathon was operated under the auspices of Rise, Barclay’s open innovation program, which consists of a network of physical hubs and virtual networks.
Hackathon participants included developers, startups and fintechs, working with Barclays staff members.
“Hackathons allow us to dynamically collaborate with some of the brightest minds in the global fintech start-up communities around the world. It’s about our staff co-creating solutions with external teams,” said Michael Harte, Barclays Head of Group Innovation.
Among the winning ideas were:
Baringa Partners (Manchester) – a cash flow forecasting and intelligent decisioning tool.
NullSingularity (Mumbai) – a bot that uses natural Language Processing and AI to make smart recommendations to Corporate Treasurers
Presciense (Manchester) – secure voice control payment methods for the Utility market.
Next Steps
In addition to cash prizes, the winning teams will also be supported by Barclays in developing their prototypes into real-world solutions.
For more information about the open innovation event and the winning innovations, click here.
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