BoC hackathon fintech 2.0: an unforgettable #fintech experience!

BoC Hackathon Fintech 2.0 was successfully held at the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation on October 26–28, 2018.

It was attended by young developers, students,, startup companies, private sector executives and Bank of Cyprus executives. The number of entries exceeded all expectations since more than 250 people and more than 15 teams participated. 17 teams presented their applications on Sunday afternoon.

BoC Hackathon Fintech 2.0 is the biggest marathon event for the development of innovative applications in the field of financial transactions (#fintech) that has been held in Cyprus.

During the three-day competition, the teams developed innovative applications related to the following thematic areas:

Innovation in banking processes.
Fintech applications for businesses.
Fintech Applications for Social Solidarity and Social Innovation.

BoC Hackathon Fintech 2.0 started on Friday, October 26th, with the Kick Off Meeting, when Mr. Demetris Papallis, Manager IT strategy & Governance at Bank of Cyprus, welcomed all participants and marked the beginning of the competition.

Demetris Papallis, Manager IT strategy & Governance at Bank of Cyprus

In addition, Mr. George Karamanolis, Co-Founder, CTO / CIO of Crowdpolicy, presented the process and strategic goals of BoC Hackathon Fintech 2.0.

The teams worked on the implementation of their ideas, using new IT technologies, a process that was carried out throughout the three-day period.

The process was supported by the mentors that participated, while the Crowdpolicy team supported the teams with the operational and technical implementation of their ideas as well as the integration of the Bank’s APIs.

Mr. Georgios Tzortzis, Chief Executive Manager at Bank of Cyprus, Mr. Michalis Katsambas, Deputy Director Consumer and SME Banking at Bank of Cyprus, Mr. Georgios Koussis, Manager IT, Mr. Demetris Nicolaou, Digital Transformation Manager at Bank of Cyprus, and Mrs. Angela Panayiotou, Manager Idea Innovation Center at Bank of Cyprus participated in the hackathon as members of the evaluation committee.

From KPMG Cyprus, mr. Pagratios Vanezis, Manager of KPMG Cyprus, participated as a member of the evaluation committee.

The teams presented their applications on Sunday, October 28th, at 17:30.

The applications developed were related to electronic payments, token securities, payments via SMS for the unbanked and the elderly, piggy accounts and smart savings, microloans, KYB, digital checks, ERP and APIs integration, analytics, robo-advisors and PFMs, physical assets securities with blockchain and smart contracts.

The winners

The evaluation committee selected the following teams to be awarded:

The Sapiens team won first place and the 1st prize of € 6,000. The team presented an application for performing daily transactions though the interconnection of multiple banking institutions and the execution of transactions using the transferwise platform.

The Saturn Digital team won second place and the 2nd prize of € 4,000. They presented an electronic ordering system using the Bank of Cyprus API. The prize was awarded by KPMG Cyprus, a major sponsor of the event.

The Trustwise team won third place and the 3rd prize of € 2,000. They presented a peer-to-peer loan application using Blockchain technology to secure transactions.

The Pepe Burro team won the the best API implementation Award. They presented a B2B short-term lending platform with the main goal of achieving business liquidity.

Moreover, the Bank of Cyprus decided to award an extra € 1,000 to the two teams of students that participated in BoC Hackathon Fintech 2.0, thus highlighting the importance of new technologies and their impact on young people and the society, in general.

The Payflow team, which consisted of students up to 17 years of age, presented an application that facilitates transactions between people in third world countries who do not have direct access to ATMs via SMS.

The PintFin team presented a financial tool using Machine Learning and quantitative approaches to analysing the stock market.

During the presentations, an interactive and open voting system was available for the audience (vote for fun), thus giving the participants the opportunity to vote for their favorite app via the electronic system CrowdVoting http://vote.crowdhackathon.com/.