HKICT Awards 2024 FinTech Award

 

Background

The Hong Kong ICT Awards (HKICTA) aims at recognising and promoting outstanding information and communications technology (ICT) inventions and applications, thereby encouraging innovation and excellence among Hong Kong’s ICT talent and enterprises in their constant pursuit of creative and better solutions to meet business and social needs.

The HKICTA was established in 2006 with the collaborative efforts of the industry, academia and the Government. Organised by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, and led by Hong Kong ICT industry associations and professional bodies, the Awards aims at building a locally espoused and internationally acclaimed brand of ICT awards.

There are eight categories under the HKICTA 2024.  There will be one Grand Award in each category, and an “Award of the Year” will be selected from the eight Grand Awards by the Grand Judging Panel.  In addition, in a bid to foster the innovative use of artificial intelligence (AI), each of the eight categories will establish a new distinguished accolade: the "Best Use of AI" award, magnifying and honouring outstanding achievements in harnessing the power of AI in respective areas.

 

Objective

The Fintech Award aims to recognise the achievements in the development of cutting-edge Fintech solutions. Its purpose is to modernise legacy financial systems and revolutionise the banking, investment, and insurance sectors. The award encourages exploration of emerging technologies such as virtual assets, payment systems, blockchain, and AI applications to provide innovative and secure solutions. It also focuses on enhancing our RegTech capabilities to ensure regulatory compliance and effective risk management.

The updated fintech infrastructure is expected to bring significant benefits to both enterprises and consumers. Enterprises will experience improved services, increased operational efficiency, and enhanced risk management capabilities.

Consumers, on the other hand, will enjoy greater convenience and accessibility to a wider range of financial services. Additionally, they will have the peace of mind that comes with responsible governance and robust security measures within the fintech industry.

The FinTech Award is composed of three streams:

 1. FinTech: Banking, Investment and Insurance

 2. Emerging Solutions: Virtual Assets, Payment, Blockchain and AI Applications

 3. RegTech: Regulatory and Risk Management         

 

General Eligibility Requirements

  1. The applicant must have the intellectual property right and/or legitimate right over the ICT product/service mentioned in the application. The applicant shall disclose disputes any place over the world over intellectual property right about the applicant’s ICT product/service, if any, for the Leading Organiser to consider eligibility of the application.
  2. The application must be submitted by locally (Hong Kong) registered entities (please enclose Company/Business Registration proof) or residents in Hong Kong[1] at the time of closing for entry enrolment.
  3. A significant part of the innovation, design, research and development (R&D) of the mentioned ICT product/service must come from resources in Hong Kong. The applicant should demonstrate significant value-add by the Hong Kong resources contributing to the success of the ICT product/service in the target market.
  4. With the exception of the Student Innovation category, the submitted product/service must have been available[2] in the market for at least 3 months or in live operation for at least 3 months at the time of closing for entry enrolment (please enclose proof e.g. delivery note, invoice, public announcement, advertisement, internal announcement, etc.).
  5. The same application is only allowed to be submitted to a maximum of ONE award stream among all the Categories. Any application found to have entered into more than one award stream will be disqualified.
  6. Winning entries of the Gold/Silver/Bronze award in previous years of the HKICT Awards can enter the Awards again only if there is significant change or enhancement in the product/service, or for a new award category.

 

[1]  ”Residents in Hong Kong”, in the context of HKICT Awards, include both permanent and non-permanent residents. If an entry is submitted by more than one person, at least half of the members of the group must be Hong Kong resident.  For the case of Student Innovation category, certification of Hong Kong resident status can be performed through certifying student status collectively by concerned educational institution.

 

[2]  Examples are applications and products already in the market, application systems deployed internally in a company, and mobile solutions available at App Stores.  For startup companies competing for ICT Startup Award, prototypes appear only on kickstarter or similar platforms are NOT considered as available in the market.

 

Please refer to the prospectus for details.

 

Judging Criteria and Judging Criteria for “Best Use of AI” award

Award Category

Streams

Innovation and Creativity in ICT

Functionality

Market Potential/ Performance, Internal User Buy-in or Public Acceptance

Benefits and Impact

Quality

FinTech Award

Stream 1

25%

25%

20%

20%

10%

Stream 2

30%

25%

15%

20%

10%

Stream 3

20%

30%

25%

15%

10%

 

 

Judging Criteria for “Best Use of AI” Award

Innovation and Creativity

Benefits and Impact

User Experience / Buy-in

Ethical Consideration

Business Potential and Commercialisation

25%

25%

20%

15%

15%

 

Application Procedures 

Each applicant should

  1. Fill out the application form online on or before 23:59 on July 12, 2024. (Application Form)
  2. Other documents/information to be submitted include:
  • A copy of the contestant’s valid Hong Kong Identity Card/Business Registration Certificate/Company Registration Certificate (if applicable)
  • The relevant evidence proving the submitting entry has fulfilled the requirements of being available in the market for at least three months or in live operation for at least three months at the time of closing for entry enrollment, i.e. before 13 April 2024
  • Supplementary information (such as documents, slides, or videos related to the entry)

       

      Timetable

      Official call for entries

      2024.04.22

      Deadline for enrolment

      2024.07.12

      Adjudication

      2024.07.24 – 2024.09.17

      Categories’ Awards Presentation Ceremonies (Tentative)

      2024.11.22

      Awards Presentation Ceremony cum Dinner (Tentative)

      2024.11.22

       

      There will be a Participants Briefing after the closing of the application submission.  Areas of attention for applicants will be highlighted in the Briefing.  Past Judges/Assessors and winner will be invited to share their views and experiences.

       

      Enquiries

      Contact Person: Lokyi Zhang

      Tel: (852) 2232 5822

      Email: ictfintech@gmail.com

      Website: https://cftasia.org/