The Interledger Foundation and the University of Cape Town's (UCT) Financial Innovation Hub hosted their third annual fintech hackathon recently at the Hasso Plattner School of Design Thinking Afrika.
The event drew 80 participants from six tertiary institutions – UCT, Eduvos, Sol Plaatje University, the University of the Western Cape, Cape Peninsula University of Technology and the University of the Free State – who focused on expanding access to digital financial services through Interledger’s Open Payments technology.
For the first time in the hackathon's history, women featured in all three winning teams.
Fireline, an all-female team, took first place and R35 000 for their community-led micro-insurance model, which provides fast cash payouts within hours of a house fire in areas where conventional insurance is unavailable.
Second place and R20 000 went to Bokomosa, whose application turns routine payments into automated savings contributions to help address SA's retirement savings crisis – only 6% of citizens retire financially independent.
Common Cents placed third, winning R10 000 for an accessible platform that converts informal cash payments into verified financial records. This enables informal, seasonal and rural workers to demonstrate a credible income and access services such as insurance, credit and formal employment benefits.
The hackathon followed a week-long bootcamp during which Interledger software engineers and Dr Allan Davids, director of the UCT Financial Innovation Hub, mentored the participating students. Teams were judged on creative problem framing, passion, understanding of the problem and proposed solution, and innovation.
Davids said hackathons brought together disciplines including computer science, economics and information systems.
"When the average person thinks about fintech, their mind immediately goes to finance and technology. However, this space includes so many other disciplines," he said. "Hackathons like this bring all these different disciplines together into one space, giving participants the education, structure and support to re-imagine the way finance looks and build a financial system that serves them and their community."
Mridula Kumar from Fireline said the hackathon offered an ideal platform to apply what they were learning as part of their MPhil in Financial Technology studies.
"Fintech is a rapidly advancing technology in our world today, and a lot of people are left behind when these advancements happen," Kumar said. "In South Africa, a particular problem that we face are fires in informal settlements... there are only four to five days a year when the fire department isn't responding to a fire. These fires are affecting people who don't have insurance. They're not accounted for, they're not covered, so this is our way to make fintech more inclusive and to bridge finance and technology in a way to help people for the greater good."
This year's edition also incorporated alumni of the Hub and Hackathon as mentors and instructors, enabling students to benefit from their technical expertise. One such mentor was Marc Levin, an Interledger bursary recipient studying for an MPhil in Financial Technology at the Financial Innovation Hub and a participant in the 2024 hackathon, where his team placed second with a remittance-budgeting solution.
Levin, who experienced first-hand the challenges of getting code to run during the 2024 competition, developed a visual teaching aid that shifted the focus on hackathon day from troubleshooting technical bugs to understanding and applying open payment technology.
Davids said the introduction of alumni mentors gave participants greater confidence in their projects and helped maintain high energy levels despite the pressure of developing an application in less than a day.
Building on the success of this year's event, the partners intend to expand the programme next year by engaging more academic institutions from across SA.
Alex Lakatos, CTO at the Interledger Foundation, said the long-standing partnership between the foundation and UCT's Financial Innovation Hub continued to deliver value because both organisations shared a commitment to openness, inclusiveness and innovation.
"We invest in the Hub and events like this because they are a practical testbed to develop people, validate the Interledger technology and improve documentation in real-time," Lakatos said. "Our shared values continue to produce tangible outcomes, from student-built features and onboarding wins to cross-border test transactions."
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