Nesta Opens Applications for £5m Open Up Challenge

Nesta opens applications for the ‘Open Up Challenge’ to the community of talented fintechs, developers, data scientists and digital entrepreneurs across the globe. The ‘Open Up Challenge’ is a new £5m prize fund to inspire the creation of next-generation services, apps and tools designed for the UK’s 5 million small businesses. The Challenge is looking for 20 winning entries from anywhere in the world that will use the UK’s open banking APIs – newly available from early 2018 – to transform the way small businesses discover, access and use core financial products. The Challenge opens for applications today and talented developer teams, start-ups, or established companies from anywhere in the world have until 31'st May to apply. Their concepts may be at idea stage or could be more advanced. Entrants will have the potential to receive:

• Cash awards – a £50k grant up-front each and a share of a further £3.5m if successful during the Challenge;
• Exclusive access to the Open Up Data Sandbox providing access to one of the largest anonymised UK banking transaction datasets ever made available;
• Fully funded technical and business support provided by leading practitioners, ranging from user experience to specialised legal and regulatory guidance.

From January 2018, open banking will mean that small businesses in the UK will, for the first time, be able to share their bank account and transaction data securely with third parties via APIs, and allow payments to be initiated directly from their accounts on their behalf. This creates unprecedented opportunities for new players to build innovative services that create value for small business customers. These could include tools that help small businesses:

• Compare loan offers based on their specific needs and financial history;
• Analyse their transaction history to provide insights that save them time or money;
• Move their money around automatically to where it can earn the best return or minimise charges;
• Help them predict and manage their cashflow proactively.

Chris Gorst, Challenge Prize Lead at Nesta, commented: “We are looking for entrants who can combine insight into the problems small businesses face with technological skill and commercial know-how.  The Challenge offers entrants a gateway to innovation through up-front grants and prizes from a £5m fund, business support from key influencers in the industry and exclusive access to our Open Up Data Sandbox to test and develop their ideas. “The coming year marks a unique moment in which technology and regulatory change combine to drive innovation in small business banking. Entrants to the prize will have the opportunity to shake up small business banking by transforming the way small businesses discover, access and use core financial products and services.” The Open Up Challenge, which is managed by Nesta's Challenge Prize Centre, is part of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) package of retail banking reforms and aims to transform the way small businesses manage their finances. Lawrence Wintermeyer, CEO, Innovate Finance, said: “Innovate Finance is pleased to be supporting Nesta’s ‘Open Up Challenge’, which aims to attract the brightest entrepreneurs from around the world to create innovations that will help millions of small businesses – the engine of our economy.  With the Open Banking API Standard coming into force in 2018, we expect to see the continuation of greater choice in UK financial services and this Prize is a strong catalyst for this.” The Challenge is open for applications from today until 31'st May 2017 for talented developer teams, start-ups, or established companies from anywhere in the world. For more information visit http://openup.challenges.org.