BBVA unleashes “world’s biggest fintech competition”
BBVA has launched its Open Talent – the “world’s biggest fintech competition” – as it hunts out ideas from anywhere across the globe.
“This year we have decided to change things up a bit”
This is the competition’s tenth anniversary and the bank is looking for concepts in banking, data, money management and financial decision-making.
BBVA’s head of open innovation, Marisol Menendez, says: “This year we have decided to change things up a bit, and to ensure the feedback we get from the whole fintech start-up ecosystem is incorporated into the event.”
There is a €150,000 prize fund for the overall winners, and dozens of finalists will take part in an immersion week with the bank, “learning how to partner with a big corporate, potentially becoming a customer, and finding solutions to their specific business challenges from expertise within the bank and its partners”.
According to BBVA, winners will automatically get fast-tracked onto its proof of concept (PoC) workstream, so too will the top ideas seen throughout the submission process.
As you probably know, the bank has always been very active in partnerships. One recent example includes with digital business account provider Azlo to target the freelance market in the US.
For the tenth anniversary, BBVA says the competition will be streamlined, with three main prizes on offer:
- Fintech for future: the idea most like to reshape and disrupt banking in the next decade. Includes prize fund of €50,000;
- Fintech for people: the idea most likely to improve customer banking and change the way people manage their money and data. Includes prize fund of €50,000;
- Fintech for business: the idea most likely to transform the way businesses manage the financial or data side of their operations. Includes prize fund of €50,000.
BBVA will also be inviting the best solutions from each of the 11 countries in which it operates to take part in the immersion week at its headquarters in Madrid, and to take part in the BBVA Open Innovation Global Summit.
Last year’s event saw around 1,000 applicants from 77 different countries take part, with the ultimate winner being an artificial intelligence (AI) powered personal assistant solution, Change.
You can apply here.
