About
Women represent the world’s largest and fastest-growing market—and one that has been largely overlooked by the incumbent and fintech sectors alike. By overlooking the female economy opportunity, fintechs are leaving trillions on the table.
The Alliance Hack was born out of our growing understanding of the fintech industry’s blind spots when it comes to accessing the female economy. As our research in 2020 and 2021 has demonstrated, fintechs are uniquely positioned to tap into this vast and underserved market. To help fintechs do so, the Alliance launched an annual Hackathon.
The Alliance Hack in its fifth edition draws on the deep expertise of Alliance members—a network of 90+ financial services providers, including commercial banks, fintechs, payments and insurance companies—in order to support fintechs design Gender-Intelligent solutions.
Why should fintechs target the female economy?
A Wealth of Opportunities
Women represent a huge market opportunity and a growing purchasing power, led by trends toward gender parity in education, entrepreneurship, and wealth. 40% of global wealth is held by women. In the US, women make 80% of household buying decisions including where to bank; and yet they are greatly underserved by and highly dissatisfied with the financial services sector. In the SME space, women are starting businesses at greater rates than men and account for 33 percent of small businesses globally yet account for on average 1/5 of the total financing from banks to SMEs. Brands that can meet this unmet need will have a strong competitive advantage moving forward.
A Lingering Gap
This Hack in part focuses on financing the missing middle — businesses that fall between traditional SME lending by banks and traditional microfinance by MFIs. This is where the majority of women-owned/led businesses are, and the finance gap in this segment is estimated at US$1.7 trillion in emerging markets for formal businesses alone. It also focuses on provision of non-financial services—access to timely and relevant information, business and financial education, networks and markets—that women entrepreneurs need to grow their businesses and all women need to support their ability to be investors. Finally, this hack asks fintechs to provide solutions so that women can take action around global heating—as consumers and as business owners.
Who participates
Formally registered tech-based startup firms primarily serving the financial services industry (fintechs), that possess a minimum viable product (MVP) and are mature enough to build towards the proof-of-concept stage with a commercial bank.
This hackathon is open to fintechs in early to mid-stage development, including seed stage, raising/raised funds, or in the process of scaling.
Why participate?
Access to Knowledge
CLINICS: Gender-Intelligent Fintech Design
The most important aspect of the Alliance Hack is the Learning Journey. Fintechs attend seven workshops facilitated by subject matter experts on the following topics: how to better understand Women’s Markets; the importance of disaggregating data by sex; how to build a compelling Customer Value Proposition for Women, how to build a Gender-Intelligent business model, how to meet the needs of the women of wealth, and how to pitch your fintech.
One-on-One: Mentoring session
Selected teams take part in the Alliance Hack and receive guidance from business mentors and female economy and tech experts.
Access to Networks and Exposure
Demo-Day Pitch Your Fintech
Fintechs have the unique opportunity to pitch their solution to high-impact executives of major financial services providers.
Opportunity to join the Alliance Network
The top three winners receive a year’s free membership of the Financial Alliance for Women, enabling them access to world’s largest network of financial services providers with winning strategies for Women’s Markets.
Cash Prize
The winning fintech receives a US$25,000 cash prize.
Rules
The Alliance Hack aims to build creative and innovative tech-based solutions to facilitate women’s financial inclusion.
To participate, fintechs must fill the application form prior to July 14, 2024 at 12 pm London time deadline. Each team can submit one proposal per problem statement and can submit up to 3 proposals per company.
An independent selection committee assesses fintech proposals based on the following criteria: registration status, growth potential, minimum viable product (MVP) or product on the market, and the ability to impact women’s access to financial services. Selected fintechs are invited to take part in the Hackathon from July 18 till August 1.
A panel of experts with relevant experience will be responsible for judging entries. The final decisions of the judges are to be based on the following criteria: Idea Validation, Innovation & Prototype, Impact on Women’s Markets, Business Model, Customer Segment, Competitiveness and Scalability, Team and Female Founders.
The jury panel assigns a score to each criterion, which then determines the ranking of each team. The Hackathon winner is the team with the highest total score.