Challenge Prompt: Financial Friction: Solving the Money Problems You Actually Have

Every day, you make dozens of small financial decisions — and hit small (or big) frustrations — that existing banking, credit, lending, or investment products don't solve well. Your challenge: pick a financial friction point you or your peers experience firsthand, use AI to rapidly define and validate the problem, prototype a solution concept, and pitch it as an opportunity worth exploring further.

You're not being asked to build a finished product. You're being asked to prove that a real problem exists, that people will pay attention to a fix, and that it's worth someone's time to keep exploring it.

Requirements

One team member has firsthand experience with the problem (or direct access to someone who does)
Solution concept is mocked up with AI/no-code/low-code tools — no production code
Problem is validated with real talk-to-people data, not assumptions (talk to 2-3 people per team member)
Solution is testable as a concept today, with a rough estimate of how many people share the problem

Potential areas of interest and examples

Everyday banking (for example: difficulty opening a bank account)
Credit & lending (for example: low credit limit)
Student loans (for example: loan repayment confusion)
Saving & budgeting (for example: difficulty itemizing spending)
Investing & wealth building (for example: managing long term gains versus short term cash flow)
Shared/social finances (for example: difficulty splitting rent and utilities with roommates)
Financial literacy & education (for example: taxes!)
Access & inclusion (for example: unbanked, gig workers, immigrants)
Other

Keep in mind

Fintech has real constraints: regulation, trust/security concerns, and incumbent advantage — your solution likely partners with or works around banks, not just replaces them
Your final ask is for resources or partnership, so be ready to answer "why would a bank want to back this?"

Intellectual Property Policy: “Open by default”

Any intellectual property developed during and within the scope of the hackathon must be open source and licensed under one of the licenses referenced in **https://opensource.org/licenses”.**

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