The scene at a recent hackathon at Dogpatch Labs. The open banking hackathon will aim to fuel the future of banking. Image: Dogpatch Labs
Dogpatch Labs and Ulster Bank will hold a fintech hackathon in Dublin aimed at creating groundbreaking ‘open banking’ apps.
Coders, designers and entrepreneurs are invited to coalesce and create at the Ulster Bank hackathon, which is taking place at Dogpatch Labs from 17 to 19 February.
Participants will come up with ideas which are quickly hacked together to create operable and viable propositions to benefit customers. Across the three days, participants will work in teams to deliver working prototypes on themes of financial services to enable “open banking”.
‘If you’re a fintech start-up or student or developer or just generally interested, that’s an amazing opportunity to come, learn and pitch to some really senior people that span both the Irish and UK markets, and have fintech units in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv’
– PATRICK WALSH
The hackathon will culminate in pitches to the judging panel, which will include: Patrick Eltridge, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) CIO; Ciaran Coyle, Ulster Bank chief administrative officer; Patrick Walsh, Dogpatch Labs managing director; and David Erixon, head of digital and customer innovation at Ulster Bank.
Opening up on the future of banking
Potential participants are encouraged to either arrive on their own or with a team.
Open banking is the vision that banks are transforming from closed business models to open, connected ones that are better able to communicate with each other.
Ulster Bank and RBS believe that this will lead to increasingly relevant solutions across the banking sector, and an improved ability on their part to identify and meet the needs of customers.
“The hackathon helps us to move further and further into the open banking space, with ideas, concepts and processes that were previously unheard of becoming reality in Irish banking,” said Coyle.
“This three-day event helps to concentrate a huge amount of energy and creativity in one room, with endless possibility for improving the customer experience.”
Prizes over the weekend include free mentoring from Dogpatch and Ulster Bank, Xbox One S bundles, Beats headphones, Google Pixel C computers and more.
Woof trade
Start-ups at work at Dogpatch. Image: Dogpatch Labs
Dogpatch has completed the redevelopment of 19th century vaults underneath its location at the Chq building in Dublin’s IFSC. Last year, it expanded its start-up and co-working space to nearly 40,000 sq ft, spanning three floors, including a new indoor urban garden on the upper mezzanine floor.
Currently, 40 companies – ranging from Irish start-ups to US multinationals Pivotal and Twilio – are using the space.
“What’s unique here is that Ulster Bank is part of the RBS global innovation ecosystem – there’s a strong set of APIs and some top people travelling to be here, including the CIO of RBS,” said Walsh.
“If you’re a fintech start-up or student or developer or just generally interested, that’s an amazing opportunity to come, learn and pitch to some really senior people that span both the Irish and UK markets, and have fintech units in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv. The international network is really strong,” he added.
