55 participants and 12 teams just finished up a 25-hour Fintech Hackathon in Trondheim hosted by Finance Innovation and NTNU Accel – and it was awesome!
We challenged students, designers, entrepreneurs and other creative people to come up with the solutions which could revolutionize the way financial services are delivered and customer experiences designed by fostering innovation, collaboration and leveraging new technology following the PSD2 regulatory change.
After a thrilling 25-hour session of brainstorming, mini-pitching, and rapid-prototyping, the 12 teams went through a live pitch session with only three minutes to present their solutions. Their ideas were evaluated by criteria like user potential, execution, degree on innovation, X-factor and commercial value potential.
Top quality ideas and pitches made it tough for the jury
The jury had a tough task on hand after 12 top quality pitches. Jury member Haakon Skar, CEO of NTNU Accel however announced that the winning team was a clear winner.
– We had a hard time picking the winning team, as we felt all 12 teams delivered top quality pitches. However, the winning team has come up with a concept that can be relevant for the identified customer segment, they have created a prototype which solves a real customer problem, which the whole jury feels has a large customer value potential, said Haakon Skar as he and Simen Armond from Finance Innovation awarded the prize to Shuffle.
Shuffling to the top
Shuffle-gutane took the victory with their solution Shuffle, a solution aiming to disrupt the process of refinancing mortgages. The team of four consisted of Anders Hjort, Halvor Reiten, Markus Blytt, Vemund Santi - all students at NTNU.
Shuffle is a way for mortgage-takers to renegotiate mortgage conditions. Shuffle-gutane had through 25 hours of programming managed to create the Shuffle platform where Shuffle acts as a third party for mortgage-takers who which to refinance their mortgage.
– Shuffle will work to renegotiate customers mortgages to the bank which has the best conditions in the market, automatically. Therefore, the only thing the customer has to think about is that they actually have a mortgage and we will take care of the rest, says Anders Hjort optimistically.
– It was surprising to hear our names being called out as the winning team as we felt the competition level was pretty high. We are extremely grateful for all the help we got throughout the Hackathon and that the jury has so much faith in our solution, says Halvor Reiten from Shuffle-gutane.
– Competitions such as the Fintech Hackathon gives us a hands-on experience with real challenges we may experience in future work. So for us such challenges are very valuable and at the same time we think that our experience in such competitions will be useful for our future employers, Markus Blytt says.
Whilst the jury were making their decision there was an ongoing voting of the People’s Vote next door. The Shuffle team also won the People’s Vote by the audience.
– It does not surprise me that Shuffle won the People’s Vote as well. The team have come up with a solution which not only the jury believes can succeed and challenge an already competitive market. I am looking forward to seeing how the Shuffle team continue to develop their solution further, says Atle Sivertsen, CEO of Finance Innovation.
– Competitions such as the Fintech Hackathon gives us a hands-on experience with real challenges we may experience in future work.
Markus Blytt
Impressive solutions from the runners-up
The jury were so impressed by the teams that they also awarded the runner-up teams: Felles and Evity.
Team Felles from Kantega won second place. Magnus Haugsand, Kristian Lund Øyvind Kallevik Grutle and Claudio Bartoli in Felles created a solution which the jury meant solved a well-known problem for a majority of the community: an app which would help young couples split costs in a fair manner in order to create a joint economy.
Third place was awarded to Sebastian Haugeto and Eivin Floer in team Evity. Evity is a solution which aims to help teenagers have more control over their spending, by the use of gamification. The jury which felt that although several banks already have tried to create similar solutions, Evity really managed to create a solution with a new interface that is attractive for the users.
Collaboration between companies nationally
This Hackathon was made possible by the commitment and dedication from several companies from both the NTNU Accel and Finance Innovation networks, banks, and SMEs, which contributed with mentors, APIs and jury members. During the Hackathon there were mentors present from Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim – all working together to guide and help the teams through the process.
Knut Eilif Halgunset, CIO at SpareBank 1 SMN, emphasizes the great value of strengthening the synergies within the ecosystem surrounding the financial sector, both locally as well as on a national level.
– Currently we’re facing great international competition and it is valuable to draw on the ideas and diverse competence within our own borders. It is inspiring to see the passion of all the Hackathon participants - this is what creates our future, Halgunset continues.
Thomas Tjøstheim, Concept and Business Developer in Sbanken joined the Hackathon as the main API-mentor during Hackathon in Trondheim.
– For Sbanken it has been a learning process participating in all the three Hackathons. We have been able to identify how people outside the bank view the banks and which challenges and opportunities they pinpoint. It has been valuable and rewarding to see whether there are any new ideas or concepts that we ourselves may not have considered within the bank, says Tjøstheim.
– I am very impressed in all the hard work the teams have put down and it is pretty amazing how many good ideas can actually be created within such a short time limit, he continues.
DNB also joined the Hackathon in all three cities and made their APIs available for the participants.
– It has been a great opportunity for DNB to participate in the Hackathon and get first-hand experience in how people outside DNB use our APIs. It has been rewarding for us as we can draw learnings from their feedback to further develop our APIs even more, says Negina Mamadova, Head of Community and Customer Success, Open Banking.
Press contact Finance Innovation: Rea Parashar, rea@financeinnovation.no
Press contact NTNU Accel: Amalie Holt, amalie.holt@ntnuaccel.no
