Fintech Galaxy's MENA Fintech Hackathon Tackles Challenges Faced By The Region's Financial Players The hackathon focused on solving issues faced by regulators, banks and financial institutions in the region.

Fintech Galaxy, MENA's fintech digital crowdsourcing platform, kicked off its MENA Fintech Hackathon to focus on solving issues faced by regulators, banks and financial institutions in the region.

Held on September 30, 2019, it gathered 25 shortlisted fintech teams for a competitive 16-hour long hackathon to create and prototype solutions based on specific briefs from participating institutions, including National Bank of Fujairah, Finablr, Commercial International Bank – Egypt, Al Baraka Group and Emirates NBD Egypt. Participants pitched their products and solutions for a range of issues such as customer experience, credit ratings, payments, digital lending, smart contracts and trade finance.

Participants were shortlisted from Fintech Galaxy's crowdsourcing platform, which welcomes fintech entities from the region and across the world. It allows MENA organizations to post challenges for its global network of fintech entrepreneurs and hackers to solve and earn cash rewards. It also serves a testing environment (i.e. technical sandbox), whichs aims for development and coding using backing APIs.

A judging panel consisting of executives from each of the participating banks, regulators and industry experts will decide the winners on October 2^nd. Winning teams will be awarded with monetary prizes and proof-of-concepts with potential for business contracts. Stay tuned to see who will grab the prize!

Related: The Impact Of The Middle East's Fintech Boom On Economic Inequality In The Region