Spain's Banco Sabadell is hosting its first hackathon, providing competing teams of developers with open access to its bank service API to generate fresh ideas and innovative financial applications.
Taking place at Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC) in Barcelona, the 33-hour Instant Banking Hack Day will challenge developers to create new web and mobile applications for payments, the Internet of Things and contextual and predictive customer services.
Participants will get access to the bank's API in a test area that will provide an exact replica of the Internet banking services of the bank. First introduced in October last year, Sabadell's 'Open Apps' platform has already been put through its paces internally and in collaboration with third party developers with an ATM location application for Google Glass first off the production line.
The winning team will be awarded with the development of their project, and a fast track for the bank's BStartup scheme for digital entrepreneurs. In addition, they will win a EUR5000 grant to develop the project in Sabadell's Incubio incubator (which offers an API to access geolocalised information on companies and locations, such as nearby restaurants with the best ratings) and an advanced training course in secure development taught by Deloitte CyberSOC Academy, and valued at EUR2500.
The event will be attended by representatives from top corporations such as Everis, Deloitte, MasterCard and Telefónica and a full panel of mentors who will help shape the development of the projects.