Shape the future of banking with Santander

Santander has launched the 'Big Ideas' competition - an opportunity for students to submit their ideas for the future of banking

Santander is a partner of Imperial College London via a collaboration agreement that provides funds for scholarships, mobility grants, internships, support to entrepreneurs and other activities. 

This year Santander is launching a new initiative across the UK and would like you to take part in it. 

It’s called Big Ideas and through it Santander want to engage with the university community to find out what you would like your bank of the future to look like. If you are creative, good at problem solving and have a great idea that will shape the future of the financial industry, then Santander wants to hear from you.

The competition is very simple.
Santander have picked up 3 challenges that they would like to pose to you:

The future of semantic search: Semantic search could be a great tool to help us digest customer data. Help us understand how.

The future of digital authentication: If someone had told you 10 years ago that, in the future, you’d be able to unlock your phone with your fingerprint, would you have believed them? What do you think is next?

The future of virtual banking: Virtual reality is the seamless transition from the physical to the virtual world. How can we use it to improve Santander’s customer experience? You will have to provide solutions to these challenges ensuring that they fit within a certain criteria.

Santander have up to £20,000 to give away to students and graduates as part of the Big Ideas Challenge. The prize money will be awarded as per below:

Best overall phase 1 submissions: up to 30 prizes of £50 –These prizes will be given to the 30 best entries in phase 1, which will be judged based on the entries creativity, feasibility, viability and credibility.

There will then be a further 4 prizes available for phase 2 applicants that will be:

The future of semantic search category winner: £5,000

The future of digital authentication category winner: £5,000

The future of virtual banking category winner: £5,000

Creative thinkers award: £3,500 –This prize will be awarded to an entry from phase 2 that has shown an excellent level of creativity or innovation, but that did not necessarily meet the judging criteria outlined.

Whilst the financial prize is available, finalists will also be given the opportunity to:

• Develop ideas with engagement from Santander’s Innovation team, leading to solutions that could be commercialised

• Present their idea to Santander’s senior or executive teams• Gain valuable experience for their CV

• Contextualise their academic experience using a real life business challenge

To find out more about the challenge click here.

Or speak to your Santander university branch on campus. 
This is a great opportunity to develop your creative and technological ideas so accept the Big Ideas Challenge and… Good luck!