Philippines Student Team Wins Finastra’s Global Hackathon

Finastra has crowned Team ‘WonderTech’ the grand prize winner of its largest ever global fintech hackathon on its open development platform, FusionFabric.cloud. The Manila-based team was selected for the top honor for its ‘Agree Farm App’ from among five category winners at Finastra Universe New York. The app, which aims to connect rural farmers in the Philippines with access to bank loans, was chosen by an audience of senior professionals representing financial institutions. The team’s app was built using open APIs on FusionFabric.cloud, Finastra’s open development platform.

Team ‘WonderTech’ consisted of four young professionals and university students in Manila: Michael Puzon, Vaniza Dagangon, John Robert Tubale and Clyde Palattao. Using Finastra’s payment APIs, in combination with third-party industry APIs, the team built the working prototype in just a few weeks, proving the speed and simplicity of FusionFabric.cloud.

More than 1,000 individuals, including data scientists, developers, and engineers, from across 38 countries participated in the ‘Hack to the Future’ hackathon. Inventing over 240 innovative new apps, the hackathon teams harnessed new technologies, with more than 40% of the hackathon submissions using Machine Learning.

Shuki Licht, Chief Innovation Officer at Finastra, said, “Congratulations to Team ‘WonderTech’ for developing an app that helps provide vital financial services to those who have traditionally been unbanked or underbanked. Fintech is one of the hottest growth and innovation areas, with some serious investment from banks, private equity, VC and government. ‘Team WonderTech’ and all of the category winners have demonstrated an incredible ability to understand the needs of the market and have shown that the future of finance is truly open.”

The five category winners will have the opportunity to continue refinement of their apps, for promotion in Finastra’s FusionStore. The complete list of category-winning apps includes:

• Future of Capital Markets: Stratl
• Future of Corporate Banking: Accenture, with IN-CRE-D (Intelligent Credit Decisioning using AI) app
• Future of Payment & Banking for a Better Future: WonderTech, with Agree Farm App
• Future of Retail Banking: ING, with Financial Assistant on FB Messenger app
• Best App by an Established Fintech: Manager.one