Bank of Cyprus to hold fintech hackathon in Nicosia

Nicosia, Cyprus. Bank of Cyprus will hold its BoC Fintech Hackathon 7.0 from November 27 to 29 at the IDEA Innovation Centre, inviting developers, startups, professionals and students to develop digital products.

Teams will compete for a combined €16,000 in cash prizes while building concepts into Minimum Viable Products.

Innovation marathon

The event is the bank’s seventh innovation marathon for application development. Participants will be expected to create an initial working version of their proposed product that could later be developed into a fully operational application.

Participation is open to developers, startups, professionals, students and others interested in applications aimed at supporting innovation, entrepreneurship and services that could simplify everyday transactions and other activities.

Open banking tools

A central part of the event will be the bank’s upgraded open banking infrastructure. Teams will receive access to Bank of Cyprus open banking APIs through a sandbox environment, as well as its Software Development Kit.

The tools will allow participants to experiment with functions including payments and services that securely use transaction data.

Challenge themes

The hackathon will focus on finance, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, smart cities and entrepreneurship.

Under the AI for Good theme, teams may develop tools for financial inclusion for vulnerable groups, education and fraud prevention. The Fintech for Smart Cities category will consider digital payments and smart contracts for urban infrastructure and public services.