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A specialist lender and start-up incubator have hosted a two-day hackathon to “revolutionise” finance and find new fintech solutions.
Pepper Money and Pollenizer hosted an event between December 12 and 13 for entrepreneurs seeking a place on the 12-week ‘Free Money’ incubator program, which seeks to “disrupt the existing [finance] sector” and build new fintech solutions.
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The “micro hack” saw 20 entrepreneurs from different sectors identify problems in the current finance sector and come up with solutions to “revolutionise” the industry, which were pitched to judges Patrick Tuttle and Michael Culhane, co-CEOs of Pepper Group; Dr Matthew Tinker, head of innovation, Pepper Group; and Tim Parsons, partner at Pollenizer.
According to Dr Tinker, a wide range of problems in the existing industry were identified at the event, including access to the housing market, financial advice, the lack of funds to pay for business services, and teaching children about money.
Dr Tinker commented: “The micro-hack process takes participants through a process of identification, discovery, testing and development. It’s an impressive way to see how different minds from outside finance approach what they see as the major challenges facing the sector.
“There’s a trifecta of business smarts that we’re looking for, including the ability to identify a clear business problem, a unique but viable solution and finally a strong entrepreneurial character.
“We’ve got a tough decision to make choosing the groups who will go through to the next stage of the program. We feel we’ve uncovered some game-changing ideas.”
The winner will be announced in January 2017 and will receive 12 weeks of training and financial support to further progress their ideas.
It is hoped that the participants in the program will go on to build out their business idea successfully in partnership with Pepper Money.
[Related: Fintech goes head-to-head with traditional non-banks]
