A couple of weeks ago, Westpac announced that we can now request and receive approvals for home loans via its mobile app. Now, in another New Zealand banking first, Westpac is planning to crowdsource ideas for mobile banking apps from New Zealand developers and designers.

The objective of The Westpac App Challenge is for developers and designers to use their experience as a bank customer and their expertise in development to make a process or service faster and easier via a mobile app. Of course, no challenge is complete without a prize and Westpac is offering up to $70,000 of incentives and the opportunity for those chosen to take their app to the world – leveraging it anywhere in the world outside of New Zealand and Australia once the app is live locally.

Westpac says it has “an innovative pipeline of digital and mobile releases” scheduled over the coming year and the company hopes that the results of the challenge will contribute to it. Simon Pomeroy, Westpac’s head of digital, explained that app developers and designers are in a unique position and collaborating with them is an obvious thing to do.

“Like most New Zealanders they are the customer of a bank and like many Kiwis there will be some interaction with that bank, whether a process or a service for consumers or a business, that they know an app could improve,” Pomeroy said.

He added that they are looking for a “win-win situation” where the developer or designer has the skill and expertise to create a solution that Westpac’s customers can benefit from, while helping to showcase their Kiwi skills on the world stage in the process.

According to Westpac, a fully operating app is not essential although the more developed the concept the better. Entrants will, however, need to be clear on the purpose of their app, how it benefits users and how it makes a banking process or service faster and easier.

The Westpac App Challenge is open to individuals, teams and organisations. From the entries, at least five will be chosen to give a 15 minute presentation of their concept to a panel of judges from which at least two will be chosen to be developed.

The developers or designers of the selected apps will each receive $10,000 and will have the opportunity to work with Westpac while their solutions are implemented (with funding to come from a special $50,000 development fund). They will retain ownership of the intellectual property rights in the app, which they can then use outside New Zealand and Australia.

“After all, ‘if anyone can, a Kiwi can’ and we want to encourage and support that creativity and ingenuity. Wouldn’t it be great if someone comes up with an app that they end up leveraging around the world?” Pomeroy explains.

“We have deliberately been wide in the brief to encourage innovative and creative thinking. We don’t want to prescribe a narrow field of focus because we want to encourage their unique perspective and skills.”

Entries will close 13 September 2013 with winners expected to be confirmed by the end of September. More information on the Westpac App Challenge can be found here.