“Customer-centric” is a phrase you’d often see associated with banks, as it’s true that their business relies heavily on dealing with customers, be they individuals or other businesses.
That’s why banks are constantly striving to come up with innovative solutions, doing customer satisfaction surveys, etc., and RHB Banking Group (RHB) has launched an inaugural hackathon to take it one step further.
Called Get Your Hack On (GYHO), the virtual hackathon is slated to happen this June 11-13, 2021, with the Grand Final happening and winners being announced on June 19. It’s an event that RHB is organising with the help of JomHack Malaysia.
The pandemic has made it clear that customer behaviours and needs have changed, and RHB is hoping to find new solutions that will cater to them.
Ganesh Mahendranathan, Head of Innovation at RHB said, “The accelerated digital consumption has resulted in the influx of new digital consumers.”
“To ride on this digital tsunami, we are reinventing our customer acquisition and engagement models through the digitisation of customer journeys as well as driving a multitude of initiatives across the innovation value chain.”
Having a say in changing banking
In line with that, there are 5 challenges that RHB wants participants to solve. Among them are:
- Ways to enable a fully digital customer journey that also lets RHB securely migrate its customers to mobile and internet banking channels and efficiently serve them remotely;
- How the bank-biz owner relationship can be maintained and improved;
- Enabling the creation and validation of financial information, robust future cash flow predictions, and sustainable business model strategies for fast-growing startups or companies so that RHB can build trusted and transparent credit profiles;
- How innovative technologies can be used to assess applications for financing from SMEs to improve RHB’s credit decisions and reduce cases of default;
- Innovative solutions that can make RHB the employer of choice for digital talents so that the bank can reduce external reliance on vendors to scale its digital initiatives.
During the hackathon, teams of 3 or less will have to build and submit a working prototype. The teams will own the IP to their projects, and depending on how they perform, RHB may offer follow-up opportunities in the form of pilot projects, a job offer, or a partnership, etc., to develop the idea further.
One of the goals of holding this hackathon is so that RHB can also source talents from the hackathon in order to build stronger in-house digital and technological capabilities, thus creating career opportunities in tech, design, or business.
Altogether, RHB is targeting to work with up to 300 techies through GYHO while subsequently fostering stronger ties with the Malaysian startup and business ecosystem.
Rewarding and encouraging innovation
Winners of GYHO will win prizes from a cash pool of RM26,000 and Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud credits, with the champion winning a cash prize of RM10,000, AWS credits worth US$800, trophies, and certificates.
Cash and consolation prizes will be given to the 4th to 10th runners-up, and teams who performed the best in each of the 5 challenges will get special awards and cash too.
The banking industry is certainly an exciting place to keep one’s eyes peeled for, particularly with its rapid digitalisation and the dawn of digital banks in Malaysia.
Therefore, GYHO is a welcome initiative to push for creative and innovative solutions that will benefit banks and customers alike, and the career opportunities it will provide to talents are appreciated in a time where the unemployment rate is still high. From it, we may well see new fintech startups emerge too.
Featured Image Credit: RHB Banking Group / IFM
