Update on Alliance Hack 2021: Unlocking the Full Power of the Female Economy

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After a highly competitive process, we selected thirteen fintechs from twelve countries — Australia, Argentina, Colombia, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Nigeria, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Uganda, and the United States — to participate in Alliance Hack 2021.

Challenges this year reflect some of the most pressing the industry faces in moving toward the full financial inclusion of women. They include:

  1. Lending to women-owned/led informal very-small enterprises (VSEs) and formal small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs);
  2. Building women’s financial and business capabilities through non-financial services;
  3. Enhancing investment opportunities for women in the mass market
  4. And identifying women-led businesses within banks’ management information systems (MIS).

As part of the Alliance’s efforts to forge collaborations between fintechs and incumbents and drive proof-of-concept opportunities, the Alliance Hack organized meetups between the Hack teams and supporting Alliance member banks, including NDB Bank Sri Lanka, BRAC Bank Bangladesh, FCMB Nigeria, G&T Continental Guatemala and Davivienda Colombia, as well as some non-members in India: AAvas Financiers, Avanti and Federal Bank India. 

Participating fintechs have also had the opportunity to learn practical wisdom from female economy experts in the Alliance network. During seven clinics, teams learned about the business case for women-centered strategies, designing gender-intelligent fintechs, using sex-disaggregated data to drive decision making, meeting the needs of women of wealth, designing a compelling CVP for targeting women-owned/led businesses, and pitching your way to success. The clinics had the generous support of Consumer Centrix, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Tyme, APIX, IBM and Alliance experts.

In addition, teams connected with mentors to help them fine-tune their business models, marketing strategies and more. Contributing mentors included experts from HSBC, Westpac, Natwest, Citi Ventures, Davivienda, Comviva and Consumer Centrix.

The Alliance Hack: Unlocking the Full Power of the Female Economy is supported by the Singapore Fintech Festival, APIX, HSBC, IFC, We-fi, Enterprise Ireland, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Mastercard Start Path and IBM Hyper Protect.

We will announce the winners on Oct. 6 at Summit 2021 following live pitches from finalists.