Barclays : Runs Largest Ever Hackathon in Financial Services

Last weekend saw Barclays run the largest ever hackathon in financial services across two continents as part of its continued drive to identify new and innovative products and services for the banking industry.

The Rise Hackathon: Episode II - The Bank Awakens saw 547 teams and 1,045 participants compete over 36 hours on Saturday and Sunday in Mumbai, India, and Manchester, UK, where Barclays has two of its Rise innovation hubs. Rise is Barclays' open innovation programme - a network of physical hubs and virtual networks designed to stimulate the growth of innovative start-ups operating in the financial technology (fintech) sector.

The hackathon was designed to address the challenges and opportunities presented to the banking industry by the introduction of the Directive on Payment Services (PSD2), a new European banking regulation coming into effect in 2018. Barclays invited a global network of developers, start-ups and fintechs to take part in the weekend's hackathon to explore some of the best and most innovative emerging ideas and disruptive technologies that could help shape the future of banking.

Michael Harte, Barclays Head of Group Innovation said: 'Hackathons allow us to dynamically collaborate with some of the brightest minds in the global fintech start-up communities around the world. It's about our staff co-creating solutions with external teams; coming together for 36 hours to work on specific customer and business solutions - an intense burst of idea storming and experimental hacks to build innovative prototypes and minimum viable products or features for customers. Rapid collaboration through hacks helps fuel and accelerate innovation to benefit customers and clients across the globe.'

The hackathon marked the first time Barclays has released its APIs (application programming interfaces) to external developers via its API store - demonstrating how the bank is shifting its focus even further towards open innovation; a willingness to share its internal data and technology to work together with the start-up community to drive innovation for the benefit of customers and clients. Peter Josse, CIO for Barclays UK said: 'We understand the critical importance of digital and data and the role they're playing in reshaping the financial services industry. We're passionate about leading the way for open banking and providing our customers and clients with secure, resilient next gen products and services.'

The hackathon was done in partnership with over 20 of the bank's technology partners, including Google, Twitter, IBM, Amazon and Microsoft, offering the participating teams support from a range of leading industry experts to help grow and develop their innovative ideas.

The hackathon took place at the Bombay Stock Exchange, Mumbai, in partnership with Acehacker and at Barclays' Rise hub in Manchester in partnership with Software City Global and Central Working. Across the two sites, there were 105 working prototypes created and 6 winners selected. Prizes included £1,500 (1,50,000 INR) for the winning teams, who also have the opportunity to be supported by Barclays in developing their prototypes into real life solutions.

Notes to editors

The Winning Teams

Baringa Partners -A cashflow forecasting and intelligent decisioning tool enabled by Open APIs and Machine Learning. (Manchester, UK)

CodeForce - A financial aggregation marketplace helping consumers use their data to find the best deal for their financial services, using Artificial Intelligence to deliver a personalised experience. (Mumbai, India)

iKey - Delivering a seamless payment experience for all of life's activities within the interface of a customer's preferred social media platform. (Mumbai, India)

Nevis -Provides consumers of financial services with a single, secure platform to do all of their banking in one place. (Manchester, UK)

NullSingularity - A bot using Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence to make smart recommendations to Corporate Treasurers through analysing and aggregating multiple data points. (Mumbai, India)

Presciense -Simple and secure voice control and disruptive payment methods for the Utility market, supporting smart gas, electricity and water meters. (Manchester, UK)

For more information please contact:

Joanne Walia

Barclays Group Media Relations

joanne.walia@barclays.com

0207 116 3030

About Barclays

Barclays is a transatlantic consumer, corporate and investment bank offering products and services across personal, corporate and investment banking, credit cards and wealth management, with a strong presence in our two home markets of the UK and the US.

With over 325 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays operates in over 40 countries and employs approximately 130,000 people. Barclays moves, lends, invests and protects money for customers and clients worldwide.

For further information about Barclays, please visit our website www.home.barclays .