On the 8th and 9th of May 2015, DBS Bank organised Singapore's first blockchain hackathon in partnership with StartupBootcamp FinTech and CoinRepublic. 16 teams of developers and hackers assembled at Singapore’s startup hub, BASH @ Block 79 for a 2-day hackathon offering over S$33,000 in cash prizes for winning teams.

The theme of the hackathon centered around the application of blockchain technology to make banking services more accessible for the “unbanked” living in emerging markets and to make existing banking services more efficient for those living in developed markets.

BitX, BlockStrap and Colu were official API providers and the hackathon saw interesting uses of these APIs in creating new blockchain applications. Mentors from companies such as itBit, Plug and Play, chain.com, GoCoin, Colu and Blockstrap were present to support participating developers.

Of notable mention is the fact that teams participating in this hackathon will get to keep their IP rights. This is a decision that has been warmly welcomed by the startup community participating in the hackathon.

Here are the three winning teams from the 2-day hackathon.

3rd Place: BlockIntel

BlockIntel is a blockchain visualization/analysis tool that aims to simplify the identification of suspicious transactions, tracking of money flow and attainment of transactions insights. The BlockIntel team highlighted that banking KYC (Know Your Customer) teams may potentially find such a platform useful as it can support banking relationship with Bitcoin companies.

2nd Place: NuBank

NuBank aims to solve the problem of the unbanked in the Philippines using the concept of Hyperlocal. Hyperlocal in this context refers to financial services centered around a town, village or a specific geographical region. For the solution to work, NuBank will need to get the involvement of village representatives that are trusted by the local community such as village elders or mayors. The representatives will then work closely with a bank to provide financial services. Instead of using a piece of paper as a record of transaction for the unbanked, blockchain will be introduced as a layer of trust and this ensures that all records can be auditable and validatable by the outside world.

1st Place: OmniChain