RIYADH: The winners of the second AMAD Fintech Hackathon were announced on Saturday in Riyadh after a three-day competition that involved more than 6,000 people.
Tuwaiq Academy hosted the hackathon in partnership with Alinma Bank, with teams competing to build fintech solutions for the Saudi financial sector.
More than 1,800 of the participants took part in person, with the rest joining remotely.
Prizes totaled SR500,000 ($133,000). Walytech won first place in the in-person track, taking SR180,000. Sovereign Q placed second with SR110,000 and Naqlah took third with SR80,000.
Yusr placed fourth with SR50,000, Souq Ufuq placed fifth with SR45,000 and Muttasi placed sixth with SR35,000.
Participants worked across several tracks. These included generative AI for fintech, customer experience, financial education, open banking, gamification and financial regulations. Many projects relied on AI and data analytics.
The closing ceremony included a Guinness World Records announcement recognizing AMAD as the world’s largest fintech hackathon. More than 2,800 teams took part and submitted more than 2,800 projects, representing regions across the Kingdom.
Abdulaziz Al-Hammadi, CEO of Tuwaiq Academy, told Arab News that the hackathon was designed to push innovation in financial technology at a time when the sector increasingly affects quality of life.
He said the competition helps create products that make handling money easier, while strengthening security and privacy across the banking sector.
“During this hackathon we received more than 2,800 projects, whether from in-person participants or remote participants,” Al-Hammadi said.
He added that competitions and hackathons are among Tuwaiq Academy’s key pathways for building national capabilities. Projects from previous competitions have been turned into products used by end users and adopted by private-sector companies and government entities, Al-Hammadi said.
The first-place team, Walytech, competed in the open banking track with an app called “Waly.”
Team member Nawal Redwan told Arab News: “The idea is to bring a user’s entire financial picture into one place: investments, loans, obligations, income and spending.”
Redwan said the app also features an investments section and zakat tools. Users can add assets such as stocks, funds and gold. Based on those holdings, the app calculates zakat for gold, silver and overall wealth.
Another Walytech member, Rand Al-Aadi, said the team began developing the concept after the hackathon was announced. She said the project was refined over several rounds and narrowed from a larger initial idea into a more focused solution.
“Even before we entered the hackathon, we were already working on Waly,” team member Noura Al-Faiz told Arab News.
Al-Faiz said the team started with market research to identify gaps, then built features to address them. She added that the next step is to continue developing the app through incubators expected to be provided through Alinma Bank.
“We don’t have a finalized business model yet, but we’re working on it — and the road map is clear,” she said.
