NTB invites developers, tech geeks to create ‘eureka moments’ in financial services industry

The Nations Trust Bank has established the ‘Kaffeine Lab’ in Gregory’s Road, Colombo to generate lots of good ideas in the open – no matter who contributes them to the financial services industry – looking to hit upon some ‘eureka’ moments in Fintech solutions to solve real-life customer challenges through collaborative innovation.

The first initiative of the Nations Trust Innovation Lab is to have Sri Lanka’s first Fintech Hackathon on the 10th of November 2017 at the Kaffeine Lab, which will see geeks and tech professionals from different backgrounds bringing their ideas together to compete and create meaningful solutions.

The Bank is excited that they have already received a significant number of applications from potential innovators.

NTB’s chief innovation officer Dinesh Thomas told the media: “The best ideas rarely come from behind a desk or an imposing boardroom. Industry-shaping moves come from collaborative innovation. The NTB Innovation Lab and the Fintech Hackathon will allow us to engage, listen to and co-create solutions with our customers, academics, various experts of other industries and the vast talent pool out there who may have bright ideas to create real ‘experience value’ to our customers as never imagined before. This means that the Hackathon will encompass an outside-in approach”.

Nations Trust Bank’s Director/ CEO Renuka Fernando said,”The launch of FriMi was a major milestone on the Nations Trust Bank’s digital journey. It was the culmination of a lot of research and hard work put in over a period of time to create a paradigm shift in Sri Lanka’s financial and payment services market. Presently the Nations Trust Innovation Lab and the Fintech Hackathon are designed to take the whole country on-board to find some far reaching solutions to enhance customer experience through disruptive digital transformation. NTB innovation centre is essentially a dream lab, a place to test and turn dreams into reality. We have created the perfect environment to enable and inspire developers and enthusiasts to use Nations Trust Bank’s existing infrastructure to build new Fintech products and services which can be delivered via the Bank’s own platforms or via third party platforms”.

The Fintech Hackathon will be organized in collaboration with the University of Moratuwa – Faculty of IT and the Sri Lanka Association for Artificial Intelligence (SLAAI), while connecting with other institutions such as the universities of Peradeniya, Sabaragamuwa and Jaffna, along with other private educational institutions.

The Nations Trust Fintech Hackathon will have 10 to 15 teams competing for significant 3 cash prizes of Rs. 250,000/-, Rs. 150,000/- and Rs. 75,000/- with attractive lending propositions of up to Rs.1 million for the best team to help them finance their ideas and build successful businesses. Official Nations Trust FinTech Hackathon website can be accessed at www.fintechack.com