Bankathon #5 Berlin: #ChatSurance triumphs, everybody wins

Insights

#ChatSurance shows the possibilities of ‘Open Banking’, combines FinTech with InsurTech and walks away from the Bankathon stage as the winner

Combination of various APIs and inclusion of ‘Alexa’ impress jury

figo has done it again: For the fifth time, the Hamburg-based FinTech company has put on the banking and FinTech hackathon. Venue: FinLeap’s Fintech Hub H:32 in Berlin. Wear and tear? Nowhere to be seen! The fact that the Bankathon is established as a neutral platform in the financial sector, bringing together the most – and we mean the most – diverse players in the industry, particularly shines in this fifth edition. Banks, industry associations, payment providers, initiatives, credit bureaus, company builders, consultancies and cloud providers were among the sponsors and supporters. 20 teams from different nations addressed the topic “PSD2 & … ?!”. In the end, their prototypes had to be found within the topics of Health, Identity, Insurance, SME or Travel.

Higher, faster, further! – Theme tracks show possibilities of PSD2 in everyday life

Has the concept of the Bankathon come to an end? A question that the organizers have to face again and again. As long as there is still the WOW moment, sponsors are lining up to support, and teams from all over Europe are taking part in the Bankathon, this question can be answered with a clear ‘no’. Of course, there are now a variety of comparable formats and it’s up to the organizers to adjust the course accordingly.

So this time there were also five specific themed tracks providing a framework for the ideas and prototypes of the teams. The incentive was that each track would produce a winner who could win a prize of €2,500 each. The Overall Winner got an extra 2,500 euros. Each winning team also received a voucher from Innovo Cloud to use the ‘OpenStack Platform’ for six months.

#ChatSurance wins Insurance Track and walks away overall winner

The team first came together at the venue to devote 30 hours to the #ChatSurance project. The idea behind it is to enter into an almost natural and interactive dialogue with one’s insurance contract. The team used the figo API to find out which policies were available. Then, they used the Franke & Bornberg API to get in touch with specific insurance companies. At this point Alexa is used. To illustrate the final product, the user can report damage directly to the insurance company via Alexa. #ChatSurance helps to identify the right insurance for the individual claim, such as a stolen bike. If there is no corresponding insurance in the app, the web connection helps in the identification of existing insurance by reading and analyzing the account sales via figo’s categorization. The user logs into the online portal #ChatSurance, connects his bank account via figo, and the household insurance is recognized and the “content” of the insurance is read out via Franke & Bornberg. So the user can simply interact with his insurance through Alexa.

Identity Track makes ‘#PIP: Prove It’s Paid’ a winner

This team was a collaboration between the companies CashCape and Netguru. The four developers implemented an idea that addresses, among other things, the topics of identity verification, trustworthiness and creditworthiness. Among others, they used APIs from figo and verimi.

To illustrate the idea: an apartment rental is pending. The #PIP: Prove It’s Paid app tells the new landlord exactly the required personal information that he requests – his own identity (verimi) and income (figo). Instead of a mix of documents, the applicant only has to submit the “certificate” created by the app.

The winner of the health track is #HealthCoin

#HealthCoin is about promotion of a healthy lifestyle. The BlockInfinity team developed a kind of payback system for insurance companies. For example, a smartwatch can detect movement and pay #HealthCoins on a corresponding account upon reaching defined goals. Once a certain sum is reached, insurance providers can transfer the accumulated amount to the user in euros. For this process #HealthCoin has integrated the Visa API.

#AIRouting wins the SME track

The team built a B2B solution aimed at e-commerce companies. You have dealt with the problem of the acceptance rate when it comes to payment service providers. Their solution: Instead of just one, simply integrate several PSPs in the online shop, as they all have different acceptance rates. This complex project aims to efficiently design a machine learning algorithm to handle transactions as efficiently as possible. The goal is higher acceptance rates and lower fees to conduct transactions. For #AIRouting the right PSP was used: for technical implementation, the team used, among others, the API from Fastbill.

“PSD2 & Travel ?!” – #Triplee shows what’s possible

The team at N26 developed #Triplee, a ‘cost splitting’ app. Login is done via verimi, whereupon travelers can create a new project together, for example a ski trip. #Triplee works on the basis of a virtual credit card. Each participant pays an amount X and can use this virtual credit card with the mobile phone. At the end of the journey, participants either receive their surplus or have to top up their overpaid amount. Among others, N26 used the APIs of verimi and Visa.

Who did the teams have to convince? – The jury

The jury consisted of …
Eckhard Lüdering (Member of the Board of apoBank, Credit and Banking Operations), Michel Billon (Managing Director Hanseatic Bank), Stephan Beyer (Innovation & Strategic Partnerships, Visa), Dr. Ibrahim Karasu (Managing Director Retail Banking and Banking Technology at the Bank Association), Dr. Matthias Lange (Managing Partner at FinLeap), figo CEO (André M. Bajorat, Advisor)