RBS to hold Israel hackathon in fintech edge push
Royal Bank of Scotland is seeking entrepreneurs’ new ideas for mobile banking, payments, data security
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter
The Royal Bank of Scotland will hold a hackathon in Tel Aviv next week to scout for Israeli financial technologies that will enable the Edinburgh-based retail bank to tap into new technologies and boost services to customers.
The hackathon will be held at the fintech hub The Floor at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, in cooperation with Google and Intel, the organizers said in a statement.
During the November 15-17 hackathon, RBS will ask Israeli entrepreneurs to come up with suggestions and ideas for innovation in digital and mobile banking, payment methods, data security and processing, and new financing technologies.
International banks including Citi, Barclays Bank Plc., HSBC and Banco Santander have all set up fintech hubs in Tel Aviv as new technologies are changing the world of finance and especially the way consumer banks work. They look to Israel, with its strong innovative tradition, to help find solutions in the fast-changing financial world, in which banks are facing increased pressure to reduce costs and find new ways to engage users as technology-driven newcomers snap at their heels and bite into their market share.
Global investment in fintech enterprises in the first quarter of 2016 surged 67 percent year on year to $5.3 billion, an April report by Accenture that analyzes global fintech trends shows. The percentage of investments going to fintech companies in Europe and Asia-Pacific nearly doubled to 62 percent. A Citi report in March showed that global fintech investments rose from just $1.8 billion in 2010 to $19 billion in 2015.
