As part of our YI International blog series, we’re happy to announce API sponsorship of the Leumi Hackathon on October 22nd – 23rd in Tel Aviv! Leumi is holding a two-day competition during which participants will develop banking apps with access to the Bank's development environment and partner APIs. In this blog, Jason O’Shaughnessy, VP of International at Yodlee Interactive, will share insights on Leumi Hackathon: Inventing the Bank of Tomorrow and how you can leverage our Aggregation API to build innovative financial apps. Jason established Yodlee Inc.’s International operations in 2003 and has since grown Yodlee’s footprint in more than eight countries across Asia and EMEA. Working with start-ups and major financial institutions, Jason has been instrumental in establishing - and launching - the first Personal Financial Management (PFM), Aggregation and mobile PFM solutions in the United Kingdom, Australia, India, France and South Africa. 1. What is the Leumi Hackathon: Inventing the Bank of Tomorrow? Bank Leumi and its subsidiary, LeumiTech, in collaboration with Salesforce and BeMyApp, will hold a Hackathon for the first time in Israel. Dozens of developers, programmers, entrepreneurs and designers from across the country will gather for 36 hours to generate ideas and develop cutting-edge mobile banking apps. According to Danny Yerushalmi, Head of the Leumi Technologies: "The idea is to allow external parties and the general public to develop banking apps that are tailored to customers' needs.” Participants will enjoy access to Leumi's development environment and APIs, which will be provided through the Salesforce platform. API Partners include Yodlee Interactive, Beaconwatcher, Import.io, Open Bank Project, Behave.io, TheThings.iO, Built.io, Relayr and Pronto. Are you looking for app ideas? Business apps, internet of things, virtual wallets, bank-client user experiences, bank-client social media as well as productivity apps are the key topics proposed for Leumi hackathon. Prizes include NIS 100,000 for the winning app team, NIS 30,000 and 3 Macbook Airs for 2nd place winners and NIS 15,000 and 3 Nexus 7 Tablets for 3rd place winners. In addition, the winning Yodlee Interactive team at Leumi Hackathon will receive Beats by Dr. Dre speakers! 2. What is Yodlee Interactive Aggregation API? Our Yodlee Interactive Aggregation API gives you access to the most robust set of consumer financial data through our powerful financial technology platform which today is leveraged by numerous technology companies spanning the smallest startups (which we help bootstrap via our incubator program) all the way through tech giants like Google, Amazon and PayPal. Mint.com was launched on our platform and our developers have built solutions such as:
- Personal Finance Management (LearnVest, MoneyDesktop)
- Credit management (CreditKarma)
- Student Loan Management (Tuition.io)
- Pay Day Lending
- Divorce Resolution Management
- And much more (See a few of our customers' success stories)
The opportunities are limitless with the power of financial data, which include banking, credit, investment, loans as well as insurance, bills and rewards programs. You can build applications in various verticals ranging from credit checks, cross selling opportunities, accounting systems, budgeting, and financial advice to a full blown PFM solution. 3. What can you do with Yodlee Interactive Aggregation API? Yodlee Interactive Aggregation API can be used to develop wide variety of application ranging from small apps used daily by individual users to a full fledge PFM applications which financial institutions all over the world host to their customers. Listed below are few of such examples.
- Travel – accessing all your travel rewards from a single app (frequent flyer, hotel, car rental).
- Loyalty – accessing all schemes including credit card for monitoring cashback.
- Investment Advise – Manage user’s all on-line investment accounts.
- Online accounting - providing business owners with real-time visibility of their financial position in a way that’s simple, smart and secure.
- SME Lending - online financing solution dedicated to supporting online merchants growth through a sophisticated and automated online platform, which provides immediate short-term funding.
- Budgeting - Bring all your accounts together in one place. They make it easy for you to review, budget and plan your money so you can get on with the things in life you really love.
- Financial Advice - connect people with the right financial information, product or advice according to your individual requirements.
Check out our previous hackathon winners or the Capital Mind post on the top 5 ideas of our FinTech hackathon in India to get inspired. 4. What data can you access with Yodlee Interactive Aggregation API? The Yodlee Platform intelligently aggregate, cleanse, augment, and store data on behalf of consumers (after obtaining a consumer’s permission and account credentials). Its transaction categorization engine enables categorization of user transactions obtained from users' aggregated data. The transaction categorization engine applies a series of algorithms to associate a transaction with the most suitable transaction category. The following table illustrates accounts and transaction data returned for each account. Categories are divided into Expense, Income, Transfer, Deferred Compensation and Unknown. Refer to Transaction Categories to see the full list. Getting Started Please go through a list of terms [here] for a better understanding.
- Registerwith us to gain access to our sandbox and samples.
- Explore our API through our TestDrivetool - try out the APIs and download snippets. (Watch how to use TestDrivescreencast)
- Use our Quick Start Guide
- Download other Samples
- Start building!
5. What advice do you have for Leumi Hackathon participants? Any solution you deliver should address a customer pain – instead of a “nice to have,” demonstrating a clear benefit for the bank (e.g. additional revenue, increased adoption or customer loyalty) while offering a clean and simple user interface. If you have any questions about how to leverage Yodlee Interactive API in Asia or EMEA, feel free to contact Jason@Yodlee.com. Also, please connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for the latest FinDat news, innovations and events!
