An Australian startup working to green the housing market has won a global open finance challenge run by NAB, CIBC, Itaú Unibanco and NatWest.
In total, 91 teams from 19 countries took part in the challenge, using a sandbox environment that ran on AWS and a set of shared APIs provided by the banks, including a combination of open banking, open finance, and experimental services.
The judges picked ValAi as the overall winner for its Greenhouse product, an automated sustainability rating tool and marketplace that provides customers tailored insights for their home.
ValAi founder Allys Todd says: "Our novel product - Greenhouse - puts people at the heart of the global transition to net zero and challenges the finance sector to influence and guide the next phase of our community’s transformational change."
Three other startups were picked as winners of specific challenge themes:
- 9th Gear Technologies was 'most innovative customer experience for businesses and corporates' for its blockchain-powered B2B foreign exchange platform.
- NoFrontiers won 'most innovative and convenient channel for accessing banking services’ for FinPass, a immigrant onboarding and credit solution
- Banyan was ‘most innovative solution in support of climate and sustainability’ for a loan and risk management platform which digitises the loan lifecycle for renewable energy projects.
Each of the winning teams will now have the opportunity to explore working with one or more of the banks to turn their idea into a proof of concept.