(Photo: pot of gold 4 kings lynn by fernando butcher)

Startupbootcamp FinTech is back organising a FinTech hackathon at the Rainmaking Loft. The hackathon will be taking place on the weekend just after St. Patrick’s Day. We are organising a hackathon on the theme of FinTech for Sharing Economy. Sign up now to register your spot!

Hackathon Challenge

The likes of Uber, Zipcar and AirBnB – the titans of the so-called sharing economy – are turning how we pay, interact and engage with goods and services on its head. In the traditional finance industry, only lending through peer-to-peer and crowdfunding, have seen real disruption enabled by accessing the strengths of the community.

What would happen if we threw back the curtains to traditional finance services to let the practices, ethos and philosophy of the sharing economy really shine?

• How can the sharing economy disrupt other areas – such as mortgages, insurance and investments?
• What are the financial implications of existing startups in this space – mortgages for Airbnb homes, car insurance for Zipcars etc.?
• What does money and the future of payments look like if we start exchanging goods for services?
• What personal data is being collected – how can that data be used to improve people’s lives rather than just profit from them?

Challenges from our Partners

Intesa Sanpaolo – #1 Disintermediation and trust-based scoring methods

Sharing Economy implies the disintermediation of middle-men, such as institutions, as they are gradually replaced by platforms (e.g. P2P lending, crowdfunding, investment club). All these platforms allow users to directly access valuable assets (connections, knowledge, competencies and resources) through networks which act as trust-circles, relying on community and feedback as alternative scoring methods. Develop a model or a proof of concept about Sharing Economy showing how Financial Institutions may fully include such paradigm in their operational models and credit-scoring methodologies.

Intesa Sanpaolo – #2 Bank services for a sharing economy world

Assumption: envisage a world where Sharing Economy is the driving force. Develop a pure Sharing-Economy bank, where every single service is built around the three Sharing-Economy pillars: reputation, community and shared access. Develop a proof of concept of a Financial Service of your choice (e.g. payments, lending, investments, mortgages, insurance, capital market, trade finance, cash management ecc…) for a world in which people prefer access over ownership.

Route 66 Ventures – #3 Create a portable sharing economy trust score
In our world, we have all sorts of scoring and scores to rate peoples credit worthiness or insurance risk.  What we don’t have is a trust score.  In the sharing economy, this is extremely important, and should be something that is portable across sharing platforms.  There is one FICO score, and it can be used across all financial institutions and businesses.  Each sharing economy platform has user ratings, but they are not portable, nor do they capture the complete picture.

Rabobank – #4 How to connect the credits received from sharing economy platforms to the financial world with their e.g. Wallet solutions?

Any other cool stuff? 

We want to make this hackathon fun and inspiring, so we are happy that Open Bank Project and MyOrder will providing their API for the hackathon

Our global partner Amazon Web Services are offering credits for the hackathon so teams can use their platform during the event. And fun activities related to St. Patrick’s Day of course.

Stay tuned for more info and register now to participate in the fun!