Citi Mobile Challenge comes to Europe, Middle East and Africa
Cox: focus on innovation
Citi has opened the doors to entrants for its Citi Mobile Challenge in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, an annual competition that invites developers from around the world to build innovative financial services based on Citi’s digital platform.
Participants will need to demonstrate their concepts to a panel of industry experts at a series of events in Nairobi, Jerusalem, Warsaw and London during April. Finalists compete for an opportunity to take their technologies into production with Citi’s support, plus a share of $100,000 in cash awards and a suite of services from Citi Mobile Challenge sponsors. Citi will make available a variety of APIs to help developers create real-world innovations that could function with existing Citi technology.
“Our goal is to unleash the power of the tech community, develop new solutions and change the way banks have traditionally approached innovation,” said Heather Cox, consumer banking spokesperson at Citi. “Citi Mobile Challenge has helped us connect with top developers in Latin America and the US, and we are excited to bring this opportunity to Jerusalem, London, Nairobi and Warsaw.”
The finalists for this year’s challenge are not yet known, as it has only just opened to registrations. However, last year Citi ran a similar challenge in Latin America and the US. In Latin America, Citi received 150 submissions and hosted 50 finalists at events in Buenos Aires and Bogotá. Citi Mobile Challenge US received 744 submissions from 62 countries and hosted 60 finalists at events in Silicon Valley, New York and Miami.
Citi is currently evaluating several pilots from the top innovations presented at previous Challenges, including entrants such as Planet Media, which submitted the project ‘push to customer,’ designed to allow businesses to detect users located inside branches or checkpoints and send push notifications via SMS or email with a tailored product offering; I-exceed Technology Solutions, a company for which the CitiLite B2B app seeks to better connect businesses with suppliers and clients; Cuatroochenta’s Citi Mobile 480 B2B solution, which allows Citi Mobile users to make a payment at any company via the Citi Mobile app without using their physical card, provided they are B2B Citi customers; and Infobip, which plans to use SMS to encourage customers to download the bank’s mobile app, combine a database with triggered push notifications and provides in-app payments solutions.
Individual developers, teams and companies will have an opportunity to register for the Challenge until 6 March.
