About FinQuest: Konstantinos Vaitsas, Senior Officer at Alpha Bank’s Digital Innovation Division and responsible for the design and roll out of FinQuest, talks about its key characteristics

What is “FinQuest by Alpha Bank”?

FinQuest is an innovation competition launched by Alpha Bank aiming to identify innovative solutions on predefined areas of interest for the Bank (Quests). Our aim is to publish Quests on an annual basis and reflect the aspiration of the Bank to explore the opportunities that are generated through new digital technologies.

Who is FinQuest by Alpha Bank addressed to?

FinQuest by Alpha Bank targets the wider fintech and start-up communities primarily from Greece but also from other countries. It is an open initiative aiming at attracting the talent, innovation and technical expertise of both small teams of developers as well as already established companies.

What does FinQuest by Alpha Bank aim to achieve?

The purpose of the initiative is two-fold. Firstly, to identify and assess the most promising solutions with a real potential to enhance its existing or develop new digital banking services and, secondly, to further strengthen the relationship between Alpha Bank and the wider start-up and fintech ecosystems. The focus is heavily geared towards creating value for the customer. This is the way to generate impact for both the Bank and the ecosystem at the same time.

Why is this relationship important?

Well, there are several reasons for this pertinent reality. Technological developments are evolving extremely fast and it is the interest of all banking institutions to assess the potential of these developments for creating competitive advantages within the financial world. However, the investment to experiment with the ever-evolving technologies can be very substantial. Fintechs can be of great help in this aspect. In addition, banks can ‘plug up’ gaps in their financial offering, with the help of fintech firms that are not tied with legacy systems and thus can capitalize on this flexibility for generating fresh ideas. On the other side, open banking and the availability of APIs is another major factor to take into account. Fintechs can now work closely with banks leveraging real bank data, thus being able to develop solutions that are more appealing to Customers and subsequently to financial institutions.

What do you personally look forward too?

Attracting solutions that are in a reasonable state of maturity and could help the Bank to further improve its financial services and the experience of our Customers. Equally importantly though, I believe that FinQuest will contribute to the creation of strong bonds between Alpha Bank and teams or individuals who can think out of the box and leverage new technologies and ways of working for enhancing customer experience and promoting sustainable growth.