Finclusion 2021 Hackathon

Finclusion 2021 was a series of connected happenings designed to stimulate, showcase and scale fintech’s contribution to financial inclusion. We wanted to inspire game-changing products and broaden collaborations between fintechs, financial institutions and lived experience experts.

Why attend

Play your part in the future of fintech

Join this hackathon to learn more about critical financial exclusion challenges faced across society and play your part in creating the solutions.

Raise awareness

about financial exclusion challenges that could happen to any of us

Deliver results

with real action to directly solve financial inclusion challenges to the benefit of end consumers

Promote collaboration

across the UK fintech ecosystem with a call to action for the common good

Challenges

Tackle the challenges that financial services haven’t fixed

Coping with cancer

How can we better help individuals manage the financial impact of a cancer diagnosis and treatment?

Being diagnosed with cancer is an emotional shock. But for many people it can be a financial one too. 4 out of 5 people with cancer are on average £570 a month worse off as a result of their diagnosis. Reduced income whilst undergoing treatment is compounded with increased costs and additional expenditure — from travel to hospital and parking charges, to being cold to the bone as a result of chemotherapy, needing more heating, special diets, even wigs and more.

Faced with these difficulties people face a combination of tough choices: to draw on their savings, to draw down pensions early (often unadvised meaning they don’t get the best outcomes), or missing mortgage repayments which impacts their credit score and future access to credit and insurance. People can feel reluctant to inform or discuss their situation upfront with their bank, or where they do may have been told to return at the point of default, but that’s just too late.

This challenge invites teams to consider how to better help individuals manage the financial impact of a cancer diagnosis and treatment.

This could be a solution for:

a financial institution to better support their customers
an individual to address challenges they may face in income shocks, access to credit or additional expenditure
a support organisation to act as an intermediary to provide assistance

Learn more about this critical issue in:

Preventing a poverty premium

How do we ensure people can access insurance without paying more due to where they can afford to live?

Insurance is the biggest contributor to the poverty premium. This risks increasing with the trend towards pricing a policy based on individualised risk factors. Some people pay nearly £300 more a year for their car insurance because they live in a deprived area. Additional charges for paying monthly instead of annually could mean an extra £160, adding up to a total poverty premium of nearly £500.

“You’re just about living. Worse still, where you live makes the cost of cover even higher, so you’re priced out of the market.” — Paulette, an expert by experience

“I don’t have contents or life insurance because it’s just too expensive. At an extra £20 or £30 a month, it feels like you’ve been priced out of important things when you’re on a tight budget.” — Louise, single parent on minimum wage

“I have to pay more for my home contents insurance because I can only afford monthly instalments rather than paying less overall for the year in one lump sum. I’ve been considering maybe cutting back on it, but I’m torn because it’s really important: not only is it a condition of my mortgage, but having insurance gives me a bit of certainty and security.” — Susie, single parent made redundant after the birth of her son

This challenge invites teams to consider how to ensure people can access insurance without paying more due to where they can afford to live.

Learn more about this critical issue in:

Audience

Industry, University, Charity — all come together to address these issues

Banks

Fintechs

Insurance companies

Insurtechs

Academia

Venture capitals

Event

The hackathon will be held on a specialist platform, with all you need to help tackle the challenges

How?

The platform contains a home for your project, a chat to speak to both your team and the mentors, a preconfigured Data Sandbox for data exploration and model creation with an IDE, and leading fintechs’ APIs for rapid solution development.

Who can participate?

Anyone can participate in the event, whether you have 2 hours or 2 days to give to the cause and regardless of your technical capability.

What support can I expect?

Some mentors will host open office sessions for 1-2 hours within the platform chat, whilst others will conduct 30-minute talks and workshops on how to improve your solution.

How do I get access?

Access information will be provided ahead of the event and an introductory demonstration will take place at the start of day 1.

Agenda

1 December, Wed

9.30am — 4.30pm

Welcome and introduction

09.30

Welcome and Introductions – Ravi Shukla Head of Fintech Delivery Panel, Tech Nation

09.35

Keynote Speaker – Chris Pond, Chair at Financial Inclusion Commission

09.45

Introducing challenge 1: Coping with Cancer – Leo Miles, Policy Manager – Financial Services at Macmillan Cancer

09.50

Introducing challenge 2: Preventing the poverty premium – Martin Coppack, Director, Fair by Design

10.00

Introduction to the platform and the data – Oli Platt, NayaOne

Hackathon

10.15

Hackathon begins – Mentoring available online from subject matter experts throughout the day

11.00-12:00

Mentor Office hours – Wendy Jephson, LetsThink

11.00-11:15

Alternative credit data presentation – Ben Eisenberg, People Data Labs

11.30-12:30

Mentor Office hours – Deborah Lewis, Natwest

14.00

How to leverage fintechs to create a great product – Tom Bull, EY

16.00

Perfect your Pitch – Keshav Singh, Natwest

Wrapping up Day One

16.30

2 December, Thu

9.30am — 4.30pm

Welcome back

09.30

Welcome – Victoria Roberts, Director of Fintech Delivery Panel & Insurtech Board, Tech Nation

09.35

How to rock day two – Karan Jain, CEO NayaOne

Hackathon

9.45

Hackathon continues – Mentoring available online from subject matter experts throughout the day

10.30

Insurance Round Table – Yannis Korgialos, COO, Ticker

11.00-12:00

Mentor Office hours – Pavle Avramovic, FCA

11.30-12:30

Mentor Office hours – Mo Karim, E-Sure

12.30-13:30

Mentor Office hours – Natalie Pringle, CMS

13.30-14:30

Mentor Office hours – Jenn Galloway, Natwest

13.00-15:00

Finalising pitches

Finale

15.00

Presentation Pitches and judging

16.15

Presentation

The teams will create and refine presentions over the 2 days, with the help of the mentors

The presentations will be 4 minutes long and can include discoveries from the provided data, ML models, new applications, or even new ideas for banks and insurers to implement.

At the end of day 2, all the teams will present their findings and ideas to our judges. The judges are from across the UK ecosystem, from regulators to charities and banks.