• Between 17 and 19 October, Sabadell Digital (the division of Banco Sabadell specialising in promoting the bank’s technological development) organised the second edition of the Hackathon Innovation Banking Hack Fest, held at Banco Sabadell’s Technology Competence Centre in Alicante (CCTA)
  • Over the course of 44 hours, more than 150 students and recent graduates with a passion for technology put their knowledge to work in the service of innovation, with the aim of developing projects applicable to banking environments
  • A team of students from the University of Alicante and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Alcoy campus) won first prize with a solution developed using AI to prevent potentially irregular transactions

22 October 2025

Last weekend, the second edition of the Innovation Banking Hack Fest took place at Banco Sabadell’s Technology Competence Centre (Centro de Competencias Tecnológico de Banco Sabadell, or CCTA) in Alicante, where more than one hundred university students and recent graduates developed technical solutions with the aim of transforming the future of the banking and financial sector.

During a non-stop 44 hour ‘marathon’, the participants worked together in multidisciplinary teams to design and develop projects addressing some of the real-world challenges faced by the financial sector today.

Among other things, they explored possibilities for improvement in areas such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, digital accessibility and financial identity. The aim was to turn this second edition of the hackathon – like the previous one – into a banking innovation laboratory that would generate results which could potentially be applied to the Bank’s day-to-day operations.

Banco Sabadell organises this event with the participation of a variety of educational and technological institutions, thus reaffirming its resolve, as a leading financial institution, to apply the latest technological innovations in its day-to-day operations as well as its readiness to contribute to the development of young talent, working alongside academic institutions located in all of the regions in which it is present.

Winning projects from this year’s edition

  • OVERALL WINNER. Clear Pay ‘Protect your money’ project – from the Octavo de Carrera team, formed by students from the University of Alicante and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Alcoy campus). This is an AI-based solution that detects potentially irregular transactions in customers’ accounts in real time, alerting them to possible losses due to duplicate charges, unused services or any kind of anomalous charge on their account, such as free product trials that the user has forgotten about but continues to pay for, despite not using them. This project also won the ALIA BEST TEAM award.
  • AWARD FOR BEST TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT. ‘Cibert Protector’ project, from the GPLSI Masters team. This is an anti-phishing system designed to prevent digital fraud before it affects the customer.
  • AWARD FOR MOST INNOVATIVE PROJECT. ‘Sabadell Next Gen’ project, from the Git a Girls team. Helps users save, invest and manage their finances securely and easily. It is aimed particularly at young people. This team also won the award for best project by a team from the University of Alicante.
  • AWARD FOR BEST BUSINESS IDEA. ‘Gestify’ project from the CashFlow team. A digital solution intended for entrepreneurs and self-employed users to facilitate tax management and tax calculation. Businesses that use it are also able to attract new customers.
  • AWARD FOR BEST AI-BASED PROJECT ‘Fincal’ project by Innuniversitarios. Helps self-employed users to anticipate expenses, forecast their cash flow and plan future payments, supported by an AI system. This project also won second prize in the category of best project presented by a team from the University of Alicante.
  • AWARD FOR BEST TEAM FROM THE MIGUEL HERNANDEZ UNIVERSITY. ‘Simply’ project, developed by UMH Gang. This is an app designed to simplify basic banking transactions.
  • AWARD FOR BEST TEAM FROM THE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF VALENCIA. ‘Sabia’ project, developed by Polihackers. Digital banking assistant designed to facilitate access to banking services for people with a visual impairment or older users.
  • AWARD FOR SECOND BEST TEAM USING ALIA. ‘Smile Pay’ project, developed by the Smile Pay team. An intelligent chatbot to facilitate business start-ups.

The winning projects will receive a variety of prizes, such as trips and stays at the partners Innovation Centres (Accenture, NTT, DXC, Kyndryl), visits and workshops with Banco Sabadell’s digital innovation teams, training for entrepreneurs and technological coaching delivered by specialists.

Over the coming weeks, the projects presented will be analysed in detail to assess their potential for inclusion as innovation initiatives to be further developed within the CCTA and to explore the possibility of implementing them in the future.

According to Susana Soler (Director of Banco Sabadell’s Centre for Technological Competence based in Alicante) “this type of initiative, known for years as a hackathon, brings together talent from universities and the business world in pursuit of collaborative innovation. The companies that take part benefit from potential ideas for improvement or innovation that emerge from outside their organisation, whilst young people who are nearing the end of their studies benefit from the opportunity to make contact with these organisations, to discover whether their ideas are viable, and even to submit their CVs to any of the participating companies. It is a win-win situation for all those involved”.

A clear indication of the interest that this type of event generates among university students is the speed at which the 150 available places for this second edition of the Innovation Banking Hack Fest were filled. More than 200 other young people who had also applied to take part were ultimately unable to do so, which, according to the event’s organisers “now presents us with a significant challenge to ensure that, in the next edition, all students who wish to take part are able to do so”.