Finastra has opened registration for its annual hackathon, with Hack to the Future 2020 being entirely virtual due to the COVID crisis.

Prizes up for grabs include cash, platform certification fees waived, internship and coaching opportunities and the possibility to onboard projects into Finastra’s FusionStore app marketplace.

Finastra is making its open developer platform - FusionFabric.cloud, underpinned by Microsoft Azure - and over 130 Application Programming Interfaces available.

Participants are encouraged to:

• Tackle systemic inequalities: including banking the unbanked, socially responsible investments, building inclusive technology and driving financial literacy.
• Overcome COVID-19 challenges: harnessing digital technology, embedding FinTech across industries, finding new growth streams and managing risk.
• Embrace technology-enabled change: including establishing ecosystems beyond finance, cross-business intelligence layers with artificial intelligence, reimagining transaction flows with distributed ledger technology and integrating physical and digital experiences.

Chirine Ben Zaied, head of innovation at Finastra, said: “The pandemic has intensified some of the world’s most challenging issues such as poverty, inequality and exclusion.

"Digital infrastructure and technology are providing the platform to transform financial services, and we have the opportunity to create better, fairer and more inclusive outcomes for people, businesses and communities around the world.”

Several banks, consultancies and technology companies are supporting the event, including Accenture, BankUnited, BNP Paribas Personal Finance, Capgemini and Google Cloud.

Hackathon project submissions close on 22 November, with winners announced in December, following live judging.

Accenture mentors will support a separate kids’ hackathon stream, where people aged 10 to 18 can get involved and submit their ideas around hacking systemic inequalities by video and presentations, with no coding required.

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