Karandaaz Organizes HACKADESIGN to Drive Financial Inclusion Through Design Experience
KARACHI – January 14, 2022: Karandaaz Pakistan successfully hosted a two-day hackathon, called HACKADESIGN, in partnership with Pakistan Fintech Network (PFN), Pakistan Fintech Association (PFA), and IDEATE Innovation at The Hive, Karachi. The Hackadesign was a financial services design competition held between more than ten teams comprising of fintechs, product managers and UX enthusiasts. The participants gathered in Hive and used a human centered design process moderated by a design expert to prepare creative design prototypes of bank account opening process using a mobile phone application.
A good mobile application design must include: i). A simplified user experience; ii). An inclusive experience enabling omni-channel access; iii). A personalized touch; and iv). A seamless process that can be completed in a few steps.
At the end of the second day, the teams presented their prototypes to an esteemed panel of judges from the financial industry including Ms. Naureen Hayat, Mr. Shariq Mubeen, Syed Faraz Javed and Mr. Raza Matin. After thorough deliberation, the judges declared Unikrw Solutions (Pvt) Ltd, as the winning team of the Hackadesign event. Participants of the team included, Muhammad Naveed Sharif, Waleed Arshad, Saif Ali and Javeria Ahmer. The runner up team was the team of students of Information Technology University, Abdul Raheem, Muhammad Ahmad Naveed and Shawaze Ahmer. The representatives of the winning teams received prizes from Dr Shamshad Akhtar, Chairperson Karandaaz Pakistan.
In her keynote speech, Dr Shamshad Akhtar mentioned that,
Distance to a bank branch and cumbersome account opening process are key barriers to financial inclusion. According to the latest Financial Inclusion Insights Survey of Pakistan, about 37% of the financially excluded stated ‘no banks nearby’, while another 30% stated ‘not having required documents at the time’ as key reasons for not having a bank account. So I think this workshop is not only needed but also opportune, given the numerous regulatory enhancements introduced by the SBP, including the recently unveiled Digital Banking Regulation. It gives me pleasure to share that a total of 171 applications were received out of which more than 50 applicants comprising 12 teams were shortlisted for this workshop and I sincerely hope that some of the designs are picked up by the financial institutions for designing their digital onboarding process.
Pakistan Fintech Association is a collective voice of Pakistan’s Fintech ecosystem working in collaboration with industry experts, regulators and financial institutions to provide a fully inclusive environment in order to support FinTech growth and empower Pakistan’s economy with scalable financial technology.
Pakistan Fintech Network operates to facilitate collaboration between stakeholders, broaden the scope, improve the quality of service, and promote the Fintech industry of Pakistan by building a conductive environment for fintechs and other stakeholders to bring ideas and knowledge at one place to enable free and easy entry of fintech services into the market.
