Israel's Bank Leumi is joining the fintech hackathon craze, calling on developers to come to Tel Aviv and build financial services-related apps for the chance to win a cash prize.
The bank and its subsidiary, LeumiTech, is working with software company Salesforce and event organiser BeMyApp on the 36 hour long hackathon, which will take place on October 22-23.
Up to 150 developers, programmers, entrepreneurs and designers from across Israel will work to build apps related to online payments, improving user experience, social media, promoting small and medium businesses, gamification, and the 'Internet of Things'.
Participants will get direct access to Bank Leumi and Salesforce development environments and APIs. Leumi's technological and business development experts will serve as mentors of the teams.
At the end of the hackathon each team will have five minutes to present their product to a panel of judges made up of Leumi senior management, fintech investors and Salesforce reps. A prize of NIS 50,000 will be awarded to the winning app, with second place getting three MacBook Airs and third place three Nexus 7 tablets.
Danny Yerushalmi, head, Leumi Technologies, says: "The idea behind Leumi Hackathon is on the one hand to allow external entities - and in fact the general public - to express their opinions and generate ideas, and on the other hand to provide a platform for developers and entrepreneurs that will enable them to develop banking apps that address specific customer needs."