The banking and payment sector in India is leveraging the digital in a big way and banking on apps is fast catching up. Accordingly, to provide a significant boost to developing and utilising “Apps” and bring out the innovations happening in the area of “Apps” which could be useful for the Indian Banking and Financial Sector, the Institute started the Annual IDRBT Banking Application Contest (IBAC) last year. The First IBAC was held on April 11, 2016.

The Second IDRBT Banking Application Contest (IBAC) was held on April 07, 2017 at IDRBT, Hyderabad. The IDRBT Banking Application Contest (IBAC) aims to serve two key purposes:

• Indian Banking and Financial Community would benefit with the innovative ideas from the best tech talent in the country
• The Gen Next would get an opportunity to showcase their tech talent through this platform.

The scope of the App is limited to the banking sector. This year, the contest attracted good response from talented students, academicians, bankers, and individuals across the country and the job of shortlisting was challenging, especially in terms of the quality of responses. An eminent jury shortlisted the Top-10 Apps, which were invited for presentations.

The 10 shortlisted teams presented their Apps to the Chief Information Officers (CIO) Forum, which consists of IT Heads of various banks in India. Twenty-three CIOs of various public and private sector banks participated today and judged the 10 Apps presented.

Inaugurating the IBAC 2017, Dr. A.S. Ramasastri, Director, IDRBT, stressed on the “importance of bringing the best banking apps being developed in the country and the IT heads of banks on a common platform. This will help the banks to connect with the best innovations and explore the possibility of developing them further and adapting them in the sector while providing a platform for the young talent to showcase their skills. With the CIOs themselves choosing the best applications, things would move ahead faster and this would encourage talented youngsters to engage themselves in developing banking apps.”

The 10 shortlisted teams demonstrated their Apps to the CIOs of various banks, who assessed the presentations and rated the apps.

First Prize: The App titled Mini Enterprise Service Bus (i-BUS), presented by Team IDBI Intech Ltd consisting of Sharath Nair, Anand Mudaliyar, Kartiki Talekar, won the first prize of Rs. 60,000/-. This App is a middleware, which provides a cost effective solution to integrate any internet facing application with core banking and other applications like Demat Services, etc.

Second Prize: The App titled Artificial Intelligence Enabled Fund Raising App, presented by Team CapitaWorld consisting of Aviruk Chakraborty, Jinand Shah won the second prize of Rs. 45,000/-. A Fund Seeker needs to approach several distinct Fund Providers (Banks/NBFCs) for fund procurement, compare their deals, fill up various forms for each of them, submit numerous documents. This app enables completion of the entire process in a single form. On each data point and application, the app is built to analyze the data including risk matrices from a 360-degree view.

Third Prize: The App titled UCO HRMS Plus, presented by Team UCO Bank consisting of Sandeep Kumar Bose, Ayan Lahiri, won the third prize of Rs. 30,000/-. UCO HRMS Plus is mobile app, which has all the features of a traditional HRMS application bundled together in an easy, effective, efficient and handy manner. Further, comparative operational achievements for business targets is available to maximize productivity of the employees.

On the occasion, a booklet on IBAC Contest consisting of the details of the 10 shortlisted entries was also published. The booklet provides a summary of the best innovations, which can be put into use by various bankers.

The IBAC saw the participation of the Chief Information Officers from across the banks, students, researchers and academicians. The contest was coordinated by Dr. Rajarshi Pal and Dr. P. Syam Kumar, Faculty, IDRBT.