10/17/2019
Second Citizens Challenge Hackathon Focuses on Bank, Fintech Collaboration
BOSTON – Citizens Bank today announced the winner of its second annual Citizens Challenge hackathon, which brought together students from more than a dozen local universities and fintechs for a weekend of intense coding, resulting in 12 working prototypes.
This year’s hackathon, held in conjunction with District Hall and the Open Bank Project, included coaching, workshops, mentoring sessions and get-togethers. The winning projects were selected by a panel of judges, including prominent members of the startup community and Citizens executives.
The $10,000 grand prize for fintechs was awarded to San Francisco-based i2Chain, which provides a custom rights management solution, using cryptography and blockchain to secure mission critical information throughout its lifecycle. Additional prizes were awarded to $pare Change (a community micro investing solution) and exSeed.io (a personal trainer for financial health). Prizes were also given to non-fintech teams that created successful prototypes in a variety of areas including KYC digitization, commercial credit monitoring and spend analysis using social media.
Citizens has partnered with more than a dozen fintechs to accelerate the delivery of solutions to its customers and has been actively engaged with the fintech community across the country as a founding partner of MassChallenge Fintech and a key supporter of QC Fintech in Charlotte, N.C. Earlier this year, Citizens received the Corporate Innovation Award from Silicon Valley-based Plug and Play Fintech.
“The second Citizens Challenge hackathon was a major success that connected our bankers with top software engineering talent from across the country to work on next-generation solutions for our customers,” said Michael Ruttledge, Chief Information Officer at Citizens Bank. “We want to thank all of the participants who joined us. The hackathon exemplified Citizens’ spirit of continuous improvement with a focus on delivering exceptional end-to-end customer experiences by using the most innovative solutions.”
About Citizens Financial Group, Inc.
Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest financial institutions, with $162.7 billion in assets as of June 30, 2019. Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Citizens offers a broad range of retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, large corporations and institutions. Citizens helps its customers reach their potential by listening to them and by understanding their needs in order to offer tailored advice, ideas and solutions. In Consumer Banking, Citizens provides an integrated experience that includes mobile and online banking, a 24/7 customer contact center and the convenience of approximately 2,900 ATMs and approximately 1,100 branches in 11 states in the New England, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions. Consumer Banking products and services include a full range of banking, lending, savings, wealth management and small business offerings. In Commercial Banking, Citizens offers corporate, institutional and not-for-profit clients a full range of wholesale banking products and services, including lending and deposits, capital markets, treasury services, foreign exchange and interest rate products, and asset finance. More information is available at www.citizensbank.com or visit us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.
