LAS VEGAS, Feb. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM
InterConnect 2015 -- Citi® and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today
announced a collaboration to work with developers and build the
next generation of financial technology (FinTech) through the
Citi Mobile Challenge. IBM will offer mentorship tutorials,
and access to Bluemix, IBM's digital innovation platform, to help
developers participating in the Citi Mobile Challenge build, test
and deploy their FinTech solutions. Citi Chief Client Experience,
Digital and Marketing Officer for Global Consumer Banking Heather
Cox and IBM Fellow and CTO Jerry
Cuomo made the announcement at IBM InterConnect 2015, IBM's
major cloud and mobile conference.
Citi Mobile Challenge is a global virtual competition
that launched in 2014, first in Latin
America and then in the United
States to bring together the most innovative developers and
leading technology sponsors to build a unique, global developer
ecosystem. Through the Challenge, Citi has worked with more than
165,000 developers across six continents in 62 countries. From the
inaugural Challenges, Citi has selected 23 top innovations and is
working with several of the teams to bring solutions to market.
Citi also announced today the launch of the next Citi Mobile
Challenge in Europe, the
Middle East and Africa.
"IBM's recognition that the Citi Mobile Challenge is
fostering the development of the next generation of FinTech
solutions serves as great validation of our efforts to accelerate
and lead digital innovation," said Citi's Cox. "More importantly,
the platform of development tools IBM will make available to
Challenge participants will go a long way towards helping them turn
their creative ideas into innovative realities."
"The Citi and IBM collaboration represents a unique opportunity
for developers to create innovative financial services solutions.
The IBM Cloud Platform and industry APIs enable developers to
quickly innovate mobile solutions for their personal banking
clients offering them new services on their mobile devices like
never before," said Sandy Carter,
general manager, Cloud Ecosystems and Developers.
Registration for the Challenge is open February 23 through March 6, and selected
participants will demonstrate their concepts at events in
Nairobi on April 22, Jerusalem on April
26, Warsaw on April 28, and London on April
30. A panel of industry experts and financial technology
leaders will evaluate the solutions at each event. Finalists
compete for an opportunity to take their technologies into
production with Citi's support, plus a share of $100,000 in cash awards and a suite of services
from Citi Mobile Challenge sponsors.
Bluemix runs on SoftLayer cloud infrastructure and combines the
strength of IBM's middleware software with tools from IBM's partner
ecosystem to offer DevOps in the cloud. With access to services and
APIs from across the tech industry – including tools in categories
such as Watson, open source and third-party tools including
services for social, mobile, security and the Internet of Things –
Bluemix helps developers speed application deployment from months
to minutes.
Through the collaboration, Citi Mobile Challenge participants
will be offered access to Bluemix to help them build, test and
deploy the next generation of FinTech solutions. For example,
leveraging a mix of mobile, security and analytics services
available through Bluemix, developers could build an application
that privately analyzes a customer's payment history and alerts the
user to potential fraudulent purchases, automatically.
Additionally, Citi will host its Citi Mobile Challenge
APIs on SoftLayer's global cloud infrastructure. For participants
who choose to build applications on Bluemix, IBM will work
side-by-side with them, helping them master cloud-based development
with face-to-face and virtual product demonstrations, mobile app
design guidance, consulting and coding assistance.
In addition to awards available from Citi, IBM will also
award the "Most Innovative use of Bluemix" to entrepreneurs
qualifying for the IBM Global Entrepreneur Cloud program, who will
be eligible for as many as 80 hours of technical support and
assistance over six months.
About Citi
Citi, the leading global bank, has
approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in
more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers,
corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of
financial products and services, including consumer banking and
credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage,
transaction services, and wealth management.
Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com |
Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog:
http://blog.citigroup.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi |
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi
About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM is the global leader in open enterprise cloud enabling secure
data and infrastructure integration in the cloud. For more
information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit
http://www.ibm.com/cloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on
our blog at www.thoughtsoncloud.com. Join the conversation
#ibmcloud.
Media Contacts:
Citi: Deirdre
Leahy, deirdre.leahy@citi.com and (212) 559-3296
Citi: Andrew Brent,
andrew.brent@citi.com and (347) 266-3748
IBM: Nicholas Smith, 978 869 0870
nssmith@us.ibm.com
© 2015 Citigroup Inc. Citi, Citi and Arc Design, and Citibank
and Arc Design are registered service marks of Citigroup Inc.
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SOURCE IBM