This year, 57 Australian universities were asked to devise a solution for securing personal information in an open application programming interface (API) environment. In recent years, digital transformation has been driven by open banking (or open data), which aims to put customers at the centre. By sharing their financial information with other banks and external providers it allows them to receive the better deals from their banks</p> This brings with it the increased risk of personal banking data being compromised. Understandably so, this new environment has meant that securing data effectively is now a top priority for financial institutions.</p> Peter Ware, Director of the SWIFT Institute, said: “We were overwhelmed by the positive response to the challenge by the students, along with the support of their universities and professors. There were a lot of great ideas submitted, which gave us our own challenge in terms of narrowing it down to the group of finalists who are invited to Sibos.”</p> The SWIFT Institute selected eight teams from five universities to compete in the 2018 finals:</p> The University of Sydney</li> University of Technology Sydney</li> The University of Melbourne</li> Monash University</li> Carnegie Mellon University - Australia</li> </ul> Teams from these universities will pitch their ideas for securing data in an open banking environment at Sibos 2018 to a panel of expert judges and Sibos delegates. The overall winner will receive a prize of AUD30,000.</p> Geoff Donaghy, CEO of ICC Sydney</a>, the host venue for Sibos 2018, said: “Sydney has established a reputation as an innovation capital and ICC Sydney provides an important connection point for the city’s main financial, scientific and entrepreneurial sectors, alongside educational institutions and the start-up ecosystem. We are immensely proud to provide a world class environment for idea sharing between Australia’s home-grown talent and the rest of the world.”</p> “The SWIFT Institute Challenge is a leading example of industry and student cross-collaboration. As the host venue for Sibos, we are delighted to see ICC Sydney become a hub of knowledge exchange once again, where the competition finalists can showcase their brilliant ideas to the global financial industry.”</p> The SWIFT Institute Challenge final will be spread over two back-to-back sessions at Sibos 2018 on the afternoon of Wednesday, 24 October 2018.</a></p>