At our finance-themed hackathon hosted at the Deloitte office at the beginning of the month we saw 8 teams make it through to the Sunday night presentations. It’s amazing what a bunch of talented strangers can create in 48hrs when left to their own devices and provided with some mentor support to help guide them when requested. Here is a list of the teams and descriptions of the products designed.
WINNING TEAM
Team Sustainably worked on a charity funding app to allow users to donate to any charity easily and flexibly. A user simply chooses a cause, adds a round-up amount, adds a credit/debit card to the app, and a donation is made automatically with each purchase. Users would get real time updates, impact points, and rewards from partner organisations; and they’d be able to follow favourite brands and celebrities to see which causes they support. The app is targeted at socially responsible, celebrity/brand/fashion-influenced millennials.
OTHER PARTICIPATING TEAMS
Team Undefined – who were only seven weeks into their coding training at skills academy CodeClan – came up with a visual and social savings app to help millennials meet specific savings goals. Users upload a picture of the item they are saving for to serve as a regular, visual reminder. The app links to a user’s bank account and provides a snapshot of savings progress – in the form of a progress bar beneath the image that also displays the percentage saved and number of days remaining until the savings goal is reached. Users share their goal with the network of people who use the app and get advice from the community.
Team Save Gen
Team Save Gen worked on an app that would be like a close friend and finance mentor. The app aims to increase financial confidence in the user, walking them step by step out of debt and towards better financial management habits. Progress is judged by monitoring changes in a user’s feelings and attitudes towards debt, savings etc by using surveys periodically to see how confidence is improving. After judging a user’s state of wellbeing, the app asks the user about financial goals to focus on right away, and offers rewards for positive behaviours. Their app identifies patterns, triggers and influences – not individual amounts. Challenges are issued according to a user’s confidence levels and financial goals: eg. debt reduction or increasing savings etc. Challenges are reduced in scope and scale when a user struggles to pass them.
Team Foreman’s Formulas
Team Foreman’s Formula also worked on an app to address personal financial management. Their product, called Receipt Manager, tracks a user’s spending and provides information allowing users to make informed decisions about their spending/saving.
Team Smart Budget:
Team Smart Budget gave a live demo of their app in action that had everyone on the edge of their seat! Their app was also aimed at improving personal financial management. It works by tracking spending, providing instant insights, making projections based on spending habits and offering rewards for good behaviour. During their demo they scanned a receipt and their app displayed information about the expense: how much was spent, the name of the store, when, where etc. They also demonstrated syncing across devices.
Team: Pitch Plan Put
Team Pitch Plan Put designed a product that aimed to provide young entrepreneurs with access to funding from local investors.
Team: Urbank
Team Urbank worked on an app designed to educate millennials about personal finance by providing relevant content, and create a savings culture by rewarding good financial habits. Users set a savings goal and arrange to have a set amount of money transferred into their savings account each day. The user is rewarded for this ‘good’ behaviour by accruing base points which would go towards increasing their interest rates. Interest rates would then decrease if the user were to withdraw money from the savings account. This app is designed to work with a banks existing infrastructure but not rely on it.
Team: Scrooge
And finally, Team Scrooge worked on a personal financial management app with two main parts: a dashboard to provide users with visual feedback about their finances, and a ‘brain’ providing predictions of spending on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
As Kent Mackenzie (Deloitte Scotland) points out in his post-event blog post, we saw the following themes emerge:
- The incorporation of gamification and product simulation into financial products aimed at millennials
- The need for increasing financial confidence and providing financial guidance
- The age of the digital receipt
If you want to see more comments and pictures, check under the hashtag #EdinFintech on Twitter.
This was a terrific collider event and would not have been possible without support from a variety of organisations. Once again, many thanks to:
Our sponsors –
Our mentors: John, Troy, Jacek (Administrate), Kent (Deloitte), Kate (Freeagent), Devon (Glasgow City Council), Waqas (FindMyPast), Sean (The Infinite Kind)
All those who provided much needed hands-on support : Karen & Rhian (Deloitte), Scott (MBN Solutions), and Michelle (The Data Lab).