BNP Paribas Showcases Digital Innovation at Symphony Hackathon

26 JULY, 2018, HONG KONG – During the month of June 2018, over 125 software developers from across the financial services and fintech industries gathered in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo to compete in the Symphony Innovate Hackathon. Thirty-five teams split across these regions participated in a challenge to improve business processes for critical financial transactions and communications via Symphony’s secure collaboration platform. Awards were given for Most Cutting-Edge Development and Most Impactful Automation Development in each city.

Teams from BNP Paribas, a Symphony customer, won in all three locations, demonstrating the firm’s dedication to evolving their digital strategy and use of secure collaboration to do so.

“Symphony is a core pillar of BNP Paribas’ digital transformation efforts. We are using Symphony’s open and secure framework to create collaboration forums and improve efficiencies through automated workflows for key business processes. Symphony has helped enable key innovations, enforce the security of our communications and enhance our competitiveness,” says Cyril Cottu, Global Head of Electronic Commerce and Digital, Global Markets, BNP Paribas.

BNP Paribas currently uses the platform for internal communication, such as between sales and trading functions, and communication with customers. In addition, the company is beginning to build AI-driven bots and integrations and plans to expand its usage of Symphony’s platform in the coming months. BNP Paribas currently has more than 6,000 users on the platform across its Global Markets, Asset Management and Securities Services divisions.

Symphony offers resources to develop custom applications to enrich, embed and extend its secure collaboration platform. Participating teams in the Symphony Innovate Hackathon developed new applications and integrations in areas like streamlining internal systems, automating steps within the trading cycle, and facilitating faster business processes using Symphony’s APIs.

“We were thrilled to see the developments that came out of the Innovate Hackathon, and to have the support from companies like BNP Paribas to make Symphony the operating system for the financial services industry. Using our APIs, these developers have engineered new and interesting workflows that far extend the initial vision for the platform and we can’t wait to see what comes next,” said David Gurlé, founder and CEO, Symphony.

The Symphony Innovate Hackathon was hosted and arranged in cooperation with Credit Suisse in Singapore, Societe Generale in Hong Kong, and BNP Paribas in Tokyo.

Learn more about BNP Paribas’ winning developments on the Symphony blog.

About Symphony

Symphony transforms the way users communicate effectively and securely with a single workflow application. Forging a new path in the industry, Symphony is designed to help individuals, teams and organizations of all sizes improve productivity, while meeting complex data security and regulatory compliance needs. Symphony was founded in October 2014 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Stockholm, Sophia-Antipolis and London.For more information, visit www.symphony.com and connect with Symphony on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About BNP Paribas in Asia Pacific (www.apac.bnpparibas.com)

In Asia Pacific, BNP Paribas is one of the best-positioned international financial institutions with an uninterrupted presence since 1860. Currently with over 16,000 employees^* and a presence in 14 markets, BNP Paribas provides corporates, institutional and private investors with product and service solutions tailored to their specific needs. It offers a wide range of financial services covering corporate & institutional banking, wealth management, asset management, insurance, as well as retail banking and consumer financing through strategic partnerships. Worldwide, BNP Paribas has a presence in 73 markets with more than 196,000 employees. It has key positions in its three main activities: Domestic Markets and International Financial Services (whose retail-banking networks and financial services are covered by Retail Banking & Services) and Corporate & Institutional Banking, which serves two client franchises: corporate clients and institutional investors. Asia Pacific is a key strategic region for BNP Paribas and it continues to develop its franchise in the region.

^*excluding partnerships