RBI has announced for organization of its much awaited third global hackathon- ‘HaRBInger 2024- Innovation for Transformation’. The announcement was made by RBI Governor during his MPC meeting statement on June 07, 2024.
Possible Objective Statements
The idea behind organization of such events is to enhance the safety, security and inclusivity of India’s financial landscape. Through this event, the central bank aimed at inviting innovative ideas to focus on specified areas. The RBI is continuously focusing on leveraging technology to enhance reach of financial services along with tackling financial frauds.
Financial Landscape of India
India is among the fastest growing Fintech markets in the world. The global FinTech sector which currently generates $245 billion annual revenue – a mere 2% share of global financial services revenue – is estimated to reach $1.5 trillion annual revenue by 2030. The Indian FinTech industry is projected to generate around $200 billion in revenue by the year 20302. This projection indicates that by 2030, India’s FinTech sector could potentially contribute to approximately 13% of the global FinTech industry’s total revenue. These projections underscore the increasing significance of the Indian Fintech sector. Various initiatives have been taken in this regard like –
Central Bank Digital Currency(CBDC) or e-rupee– It might prove to be milestone in digital payment industry. As you might be aware that RBI has commenced pilot run of CBDC fir specific use cases for both Wholesale and retail segments.
However, all these innovations came with risk of ever increasing financial frauds in the country. To curb this, various innovative ideas are taken up by Central bank from time to time.
Themes of ‘HaRBInger 2024- Innovation for Transformation’
1. Theme 1: Zero Financial Frauds
- Real time prediction, detection and prevention of frauds in financial transactions using alternate sources
- Ensuring transaction anonymity
- Identifying mule bank accounts/payment wallets
2. Theme 2: Being Divyang friendly
- Accurately identifying bank notes by visually impaired.
Snapshot of HaRBInger 2023
The second global hackathon, ‘’HaRBInger 2023- Innovation for Transformation’’, received excellent response with 154 proposals submitted by teams from both within India and globally. The Problem statements were-
Problem Statement 1: Innovative, easy-to-use, digital banking services for differently abled (Divyaang).
Problem Statement 2: RegTech solutions to facilitate more efficient compliance for Regulated Entities (REs)
Problem Statement 3: Exploring use cases/solutions for CBDC-R transactions, including transactions in offline mode
Problem Statement 4: Increasing Transactions Per Second (TPS)/ throughput and scalability of block chains.
Reward under each problem statement for HaRBInger 2024:
| Category | INR Amount (in lakhs) |
| Winner across each problem statement | 40.00 |
| Special Prize to the best ‘all women team’ (a team comprising of only women members), across all the four problem statement | 20.00 |
| Stipend per team shortlisted for solution development | 5.00 |
Conclusion
The organization of such innovative events are very encouraging for mustering ideas to focus on identified areas. This move is part of Central bank efforts to collaboratively tackle the financial fraud challenges. However, if these events can be organized at smaller scale also and for individual participants, then it will enhance its reach and more innovative ideas can be gathered.
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