Banco Hipotecario, the largest bank in El Salvador, is inviting innovators to build the future of banking. This invitation is part of a series of initiatives that will help to improve financial inclusion in El Salvador.
Open Bank Project, API3, Qredo, and Sovryn, among other tech giants, have invited the open source community to assist in the development of cutting-edge infrastructure for El Salvador’s future financial system.
Berlin, October 19, 2021 — Banco Hipotecario today announced the first “Bitcoin Bankathon,” which will run for three weeks from November 19th to December 5th. The genesis event aims to bring together developers from all over the world to create novel banking applications based on a technology platform provided by four industry leaders — Open Bank Project, API3, Qredo, and Sovryn — that will allow Banco Hipotecario to offer Bitcoin banking and financial services to all Salvadorans.
El Salvador’s acceptance of Bitcoin paves the way for the nation to have access to decentralized financial Bitcoin products as well as alternative global investment sources.
Teams of Web 2.0 and 3.0 programmers, designers, entrepreneurs, and problem-solvers will spend two weeks working online to develop functional prototypes for their ideas and build up a new infrastructure that will reinvent the future of financial services in El Salvador beginning November 19th. Participants will have the opportunity to code in the heart of El Salvador during the third week.
The hackathon challenges will be divided into five categories:
- Build El Salvador’s future neobank: What could a more inclusive Bitcoin-enabled neobank look like in 2022?
- Rethink remittances: How might Bitcoin remittances help Salvadorans who depend on money from other countries?
- Combating climate change: How can banks and cryptocurrency businesses bring El Salvador’s people together to combat climate change?
- Women’s financial empowerment: How might crypto and open banking aid women’s financial empowerment?
- Empower merchants: How can we use open financial data and smart contracts to empower merchants?
Participants will get on-the-ground and online assistance. Engineers will assist with technical questions, while mentors will guide you to the ideal pitch. All qualifying teams will be able to earn a share of the $200K prize pool, which includes awards for Best Overall Product and Most Advanced Technology.
The Bitcoin Bankathon is currently accepting registrations, and anybody interested in participating may get a pass here.
“We must start pushing innovation proactively if we are to succeed in building a more accessible financial services environment for the people of El Salvador,” says Celina Padilla, President of Banco Hipotecario de El Salvador. “A hackathon is like a seed that enables for the growth of invention. Banco Hipotecario is pleased to be the first bank in the area to sow the seed for new Bitcoin-based apps that will eliminate the obstacles that hinder Salvadorans from accessing financial services.”
“Hackathons are always fascinating places to be; to come up with new business and social ideas, to code, to learn about new technologies and procedures, to meet new people, to establish new relationships, and, of course, to show off the fruits of your hacking!” This hackathon promises to be particularly active and productive, with the adoption of the Bitcoin legislation in El Salvador and our cooperation with Banco Hipotecario and prominent blockchain firms API3, Qredo, and Sovryn!” According to Simon Redfern, creator of the Open Bank Project and CEO of TESOBE.
“El Salvador has rapidly become a worldwide financial leader by forcefully changing its regulations to fit the next generation of financial technology and embracing the promise it provides for new levels of inclusivity, privacy, and financial security,” says Heikki Vänttinen, co-founder of API3. API3 is ecstatic to be a part of the team developing the tools that will allow the whole Salvadoran community to profit from Bitcoin.”
“As an open-source decentralized technology provider, we are proud and excited to help foster the growth of local talent in El Salvador to help enable the next generation of innovation,” says Josh Goodbody, COO at Qredo, “This Hackathon marks the start of Qredo’s long-term commitment to assisting El Salvador’s ambitious program of Bitcoinization.”
“Most developing nations lack sophisticated financial markets, forcing them to depend on markets and institutions in traditional global financial centers such as New York and London. El Salvador now has access to a new financial system thanks to the acceptance of Bitcoin. This decentralized financial system is open, global, and transparent, and it is being developed by the greatest technologists and financial brains on the planet. Sovryn is pleased to be able to collaborate with other top DeFi (decentralized financial) solutions to provide financial inclusion to Salvadorans that would have been difficult to achieve using conventional methods.” Edan Yago, a Core Contributor at Sovryn, agrees.
About Banco Hipotecario de El Salvador: Banco Hipotecario de El Salvador is El Salvador’s main Tier 1 state-owned commercial bank. It specializes on providing finance to Salvadoran SMEs in a variety of economic areas, with goods and services available throughout the nation.
About the Open Bank Project: The Open Bank Project, led by TESOBE GmbH, is the premier API Management platform for banks looking to improve their digital services quickly and securely. The Open Bank Project helps institutions implement Open Banking systems by offering over 500 standardised APIs that are utilized by a thriving worldwide community of over 11,000 developers.
API3 (Application Programming Interface): The API3 Foundation is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that creates decentralized, quantifiably secure data feeds for use in Web 3.0 applications without the need of third-party intermediaries. API3’s dAPIs are completely decentralized and blockchain-native APIs with measurable security, thanks to Airnode-enabled first-party oracles.
Qredo is a decentralized digital asset management infrastructure and product suite that aims to provide institutional investors with new possibilities in digital assets and decentralized finance. Users may easily transfer and settle BTC, ETH, and ERC-20 tokens using Qredo’s Layer 2 blockchain technology. Qredo’s sophisticated Gen 2.0 multi-party computation (MPC) offers tier-1 bank security and institutional-grade governance, securing assets.
Sovryn is a Bitcoin-native financial operating system that enables users to use their Bitcoin in decentralized apps. For the next generation of DeFi, the Sovryn protocol offers an infrastructure based on layer-2 technology. The Sovryn Black Paper contains additional information about the Sovryn tech stack, its use cases, and the SOV token.
