Hong Leong Bank Seeks Digital Disruptors Across Southeast Asia to Find ESG-Focused Innovative Solutions for Banking and Financial Services

KUALA LUMPUR,Malaysia,Aug. 5,2021 -- Hong Leong Bank("HLB" or the "Bank") is calling all budding disruptors to join its 'Can You Hack It' Virtual Hackathon ASEAN Edition 2021 to co-create Innovative solutions focused on ESG. This virtual hackathonthemed 'Environmental,Social and Governance ("ESG")' aims to get creative ideas and solutions on how people in the region interpret ESG and how technology can be leveraged to improve digital banking products,services and experiences.

Applications are open until 31 August 2021

Open to ALL with the freedom to form up to a three-member team,the Bank is expanding applications to diverse nationalities across ASEAN. Participants are expected to propose ideas by solving problem statements provided by the Bank. Then,coding,validating,and demonstrating a working prototype to a panel of HLB executives,plus digital and FinTech players. This year's ESG-focused problem statement categories include community banking,community investment,climate-positive financing,socially responsible business and financial literacy. Teams are expected to use the likes of big data,artificial intelligence ("AI"),blockchain,machine learning and machine vision to tackle the problem statements.

Participating teams will also get a chance to be mentored by top executives from HLB's regional counterparts in Vietnam,Cambodia and Singapore,Google Cloud,Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation ("MDEC"),MaGIC,JomHack Malaysia and HLB Launchpad 2021 winner,ERTH,a startup that offers e-waste recycling services.

Shailesh Grover,Chief Digital Innovation Officer of HLBsaid,"Our digital-at-the-core strategy over the past few years has successfully enabled us to simplify how customers interact with us across channels of their choice and get a delightful experience. As a proud community bank with sustainability as a core value,we now want to take it a step further to create effective banking and financial products and services that create long-term sustainable value for our customers,community and the planet."

"Moving forward,taking full advantage of technologies like AI,machine learning and big data analytics will allow us to better generate and analyse ESG data,gain deeper insights to measure,track and improve our "green quotient" when it comes to all things finance. Hence,we invite anyone across the region who want to identify solutions,new business models and opportunities relating to ESG in co-creating sustainable digital banking and finance," added Grover.

Applications are open until 31 August 2021. To find out more,please visit https://www.hlb.com.my/hlbcanyouhackit/.