Oana Coșman
Teams from 10 European countries (Poland, Romania,Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Greece) are invited to take part in the challenge and build value creation applications on top of the battle tested Open Banking data aggregation platform provided by Finqware.
Registrations for Open Banking Hachathon #3 are open until 19th of September 2021.
During the 5 days of the hackathon, the teams will cover 3 main challenges:
> Open Banking for Individuals - personal finance management applications; robo-advisory for increasing financial health; increase financial inclusiveness; next level payment solutions.
> Open Banking for Business - optimising treasury management for corporates; smart financial management for SMEs; cross border FX hedging for corporates; bulk payments scenarios over payment initiation
> Open Banking for IoT - using wearables to manage financial life; automotive software applications; smart cities.
Last year, more than 40 teams joined the competition, with winners gaining cash awards of up to 5,000 EUR, PoC partnerships and numerous other partner benefits.
Open Banking continues to make progress despite the pandemic and last year’s hackathon has proven that fintechs are more and more adaptable into transforming the financial services industry.
“I am incredibly excited by the projects Open Banking Hackathon has uncovered and I believe this year can bring even more interesting projects in the spotlight. The event is a launching pad for early-stage projects and a first step in the collaboration with financial institutions and relevant fintech players", says Cosmin Cosma, the initiator of the event.
While many traditional services have been going digital for more than a decade, Open Banking is still relatively nascent on its journey to transforming financial services. In September 2019 the regulation known as the Payments Services Directive 2 (PSD2) came into effect.
Ever since, over 5,000 banks have opened their gates through the APIs and there are now more than 400 third-party providers in Europe.
The emergence of Open Banking has poured fuel on the fintech fire. Romanian and CEE companies have been quick to see and seize opportunities across both the data and payments landscape.
“Innovation has become a shared goal, with the benefits of closer partnerships filtering down to the consumer. Better products and services are being created every day, with the added benefits of a more interconnected and open financial ecosystem”, states Cosmin Cosma, Co-Founder and CEO of Finqware, a middleware financial API aggregation platform to interconnect businesses and fintechs with banks.
Thus the Open Banking Hackathon event was set-up three years ago, aiming to create an open platform to foster innovation. Supported throughout the years by important financial institutions such as National Bank of Romania, Alpha Bank, Banca Comerciala Romana, Raiffeisen Bank, Banca Transilvania, OTP Bank, Varengold Bank, BRD SocGen and Unicredit Bulbank the event has managed to grow year by year into a relevant resource hub and a launching platform for starting fintechs.
Other supporting partners who have continuously contributed to the success of the event are companies such as the international law firm CMS, DHL Express Romania, fintech associations, innovation communities and startup accelerators from Hungary (OTP Lab), Austria (Elevator Lab, Pioneers), Romania (Techcelerator, InnovX, Rofin.Tech, Startup Grind Bucharest), Bulgaria (Bulgaria Fintech, Eleven Accelerator), Slovakia (Slovak Fintech).
Registrations for Open Banking Hachathon #3 are open until 19th of September 2021.
