Australian bank Westpac has launched a RegTech-themed challenge for startups.
Entrepreneurs, start-ups and scale-up businesses are invited to enter Westpac’s 2018 Innovation Challenge, launched today, for the chance to win $40,000 and professional support to grow their business.
The challenge is looking for entrants to create a technological solution that helps companies comply with regulatory obligations and deliver improved customer outcomes. It will focus on technologies like cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence.
Five finalists will be chosen to attend a boot camp at Westpac to prepare for the live pitch in Sydney in December. The judging panel consists of leading industry experts, including Deborah Young, CEO The RegTech Association.
Westpac Group executive, strategy and enterprise services, Gary Thursby, said: “Businesses are operating in an environment of heightened regulatory scrutiny. Technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence all have the potential to significantly shift the very nature of how we use technology to support and enhance our compliance with new and emerging regulatory obligations.
“We’re looking for the next big idea about how these innovations can reduce regulatory costs, improve efficiencies and better meet customer needs.”
The Westpac Innovation Challenge aims to identify the next generation of leaders and inventors, connecting them to the opportunities that will turn their big ideas into a reality.
Last year’s winner Mr Evan Wong, co-founder and CEO of FinTech company Checkbox Technology, added: “The Westpac Challenge really put us on the map for the first time and allowed us to connect with many of our target customers. We’ve now secured $1.7m in funding and doubled our staff numbers to expand the business in different markets.”
Earlier this year, Westpac partnered with IBM to offer hybrid platform as a service.
The bank and IBM implemented a fully integrated hybrid cloud platform across their business to ‘deliver premium services’ to more than 13 million customers. Called Hybrid-Platform-as-a-Service (HPaaS), the new environment enables Westpac to easily deploy applications across the group and deliver new customer solutions to market faster, while meeting ‘regulations for data protection and privacy’.
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