The Saudi G20 Presidency and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub are launching a virtual hackathon-style competition to find new technological ways to tackle financial regulatory compliance and supervision challenges.

The G20 TechSprint Initiative is inviting private firms to take on challenges in regulatory reporting, analytics, and monitoring and supervision.

With Covid-19 making travel impossible, the competition will use the cloud-based API Exchange (Apix) to facilitates registration, prototype building and online judging of submissions.

Apix is a cross-border marketplace and sandbox set up by the Asean Financial Innovation Network in 2018 to enable financial institutions and fintech firms to work together on financial inclusion projects.

Selected participants will get to present their proposals in virtual workshops for national authorities in July, with cash grants given to short-listed players and winners getting prizes of US$50,000 per problem solved.

Ahmed Alkholifey, governor, Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, says: "Alongside the BIS Innovation Hub, we look to the global fintech community to help mobilise effective solutions to pressing financial regulatory and supervisory challenges, including by supporting regulatory and supervisory responses against the Covid-19 pandemic."