PayAza is awarding over $4,000 to participants in its first fintech hackathon

PayAza introduced the maiden edition of the Fintech Hackathon, a 2-day event that started on December 21 and ended on December 22, 2022. The Hackathon theme “Rethinking Payments: Driving Financial Innovations Towards Customers’ Satisfaction” featured participants from diverse professional backgrounds competing in teams for to seek a payment solution that will facilitate the customer’s experience.

Participants were grouped into five teams on Day 1 and tasked with building an innovation that solves a business case for the grand prize of $2,000. Each group was assigned a mentor to help them through the challenge and received guidelines and some PayAza APIs to facilitate their ideas.

Team members immediately bonded and set about presenting a feasible, scalable and profitable innovation to a panel of judges the next day.

Toyeeb, a software engineer, expressed his delight in interacting with team members and other participants. As a self-taught technician, he believed meeting like minds was invaluable to his career development.

On Day 2, the contestants continued to work on their innovations before presenting to a panel of judges, which included Tomilola Majekodunmi, CEO Bankly; Niyi Kolade, Managing Director; Seerbit, Bukola Bankole, Partner TNC; Kayode Fadunhsi. CEO Prosperis Holdings; Williams Fatayo, CEO Truq; and Adetola Nola, Founder and CEO, Veritas.

There is room for improvement in Nigeria’s Fintech ecosystem

The judges asked the participants to seek solutions in the fintech area, especially in the payments sector. There could be more improvements in the payments sector as suppliers and customers continue to face issues affecting businesses, while the payment process can also be made more convenient. Standard bank payments can take up to five steps to complete, while they can be done in two steps or less. Problems with delayed and rejected transfers also persist.

Williams Fatayo, CEO of Truq explained to the participants to seek partnerships to strengthen the viability of their products. He explained that it would be more productive to collaborate with similar startups to ensure that customers are well satisfied and will also promote business development. “If you go it alone, you will suffer until you learn to work with people who have it all figured out. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Focus at the core of what you can do and figuring out gateways and APIs to power what you can do on your side.

Tomilola Majekodunmi also urged the participants to eliminate risks at technical level and security level. “When you come out with new products, criminals also do their ‘hackathons’ to hit your system. When you come together now, they also look for vulnerabilities in your or any other new system.”

Other judges and attendees agreed that customers still have problems with payment systems. As Nigeria and Africa work to increase the number of unbanked people as we seek a cashless society, we need to improve security measures and ease of use of payment systems. Take digital payments to several people at the same time.

Niyi Kolade urged participants not to be deterred by the number of payment solutions already in operation.

“I think if someone is afraid to start or feel threatened by the number of big companies in fintech, they should remember that there are still problems to solve. As regulation improves, we bring more people into the e-banking space, so we must focus on securities.”

Niyi Kolade, CEO of SeerBit

“Customer experience and transfer errors are still persistent and we are at the point where we need to get back to fixing these issues. The next big thing is to be focused on helping market women understand digital payments,” he said.

Also Read: SeerBit CEO, Omoniyi Kolade Talks Banks-Fintechs Relationship And Bridging Payment Gap

The five teams presented the innovations they came up with on day one, impressing both judges and spectators. One team proposed a system to make NFC payments more effortless, and another presented an idea to enable voice and facial recognition as security measures.

Another team proposed a platform that fosters trust between suppliers and customers by facilitating payments and holding funds in custody until a customer is satisfied with the supplier’s goods and services.

The judges asked questions and gave advice to help the contestants’ innovations. The participants were also informed that all the ideas were innovative and unique and that all were winners. The partnerships and experience are worth more than any prize money.

At the end of the results; Team Ballers; who proposed a payment platform that could allow digital payment without internet service, took first prize to win the grand prize of $2,000. Speaking to Technext, Ishaya Solomon, Osato Frederick, Ibukunoluwa Fetubo and other team members explained that the hackathon was intense. Still, they’re glad it was worth it.

– It was very intense. We just met yesterday and were already brainstorming a plan before we got the guidelines for the hackathon. We factored this into our plans and worked until very late, some of us hadn’t slept all night but it was worth it.

They expect the bond formed at the PayAza Fintech Hackathon to grow stronger; the first plan is to prom, but we’re going to have a meeting to move things forward because it doesn’t end here,

First and second runners-up received $1,200 and $600 respectively, while there were other cash prizes for individuals who also impressed the judges and mentors during the hackathon.

PayAza Fintech Hackathon 1.0 is just the beginning.

At the end of the hackathon, Philips Akinyele, the co-founder of PayAza, expressed his delight at the innovations presented and the dedication to its success. He also appreciated the effort and labor that made the hackathon a success.

“This is Hackathon 1.0 for PayAza, next year will be bigger and it will be packed. As we mentioned, we hope to launch PayAza University very soon. So expect a lot from us in 2023.

In a chat with Technext, he said that he was particularly pleased with the efforts of all the participants, “They want to succeed and you could see that energy in all of them. More importantly, everyone is a winner, despite a very limited time, every team was able to bring amazing presentations and that’s my favorite part of it.

He also stated that this hackathon is one way PayAza seeks to contribute to the Nigerian tech ecosystem going forward. This is Hackathon 1.0, next year will be bigger and better, and the PayAza University will help solve many unique problems in the payment space and, more importantly, in building the technological ecosystem around PayAza from 2023.

“We want to help the youth become independent and build technical skills, and that’s what PayAza wants to do, so expect that from us in 2023.”

Also read: Team Zion, Neon and Wiiverify win $10000 in Prembly Hackathon