Mumbai, 13 February: HDB Financial Services, a leading Non-Banking Financial Company that caters to the growing needs of an aspirational India, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), has announced an Ideathon for Fintechs, TechFins and cutting-edge idea originators aimed at accelerating the development of scalable, real-world solutions for India’s financial services ecosystem.
Positioned at the intersection of finance and technology, the HDB–AWS Ideathon brings together Fintechs, TechFins to address authentic business challenges across lending, risk management, customer experience, and operational efficiency. Participants will leverage AWS’s cloud, data, and AI capabilities while working directly on real use cases identified by HDB Financial Services, ensuring a strong pathway from ideation to potential adoption. The program design incorporates AWS’s proven customer-centric innovation methodology, emphasizing a ‘Working Backwards’ approach that starts with customer challenges and works backward to ‘Think Big’ solutions. This framework enabled HDB Financial Services to identify high-impact challenges across their business functions, which will be aligned with scalable technology solutions.
The Ideathon moves beyond conventional hackathons by focusing on relevance, scalability, and real world deployment. Shortlisted companies will receive structured mentorship from industry experts and present their solutions to a distinguished jury comprising senior leaders and domain specialists.
Speaking on the initiative, Mathew Panat, Chief Technology Officer at HDB Financial Services said, “Innovation in financial services must translate into measurable outcomes. Through this Ideathon, we aim to work closely with startups and innovators to develop solutions that are practical, scalable, and aligned with the realities of a regulated financial ecosystem. Our partnership with AWS has been instrumental in helping us adopt a truly customer-obsessed approach—starting with real customer challenges identified through structured discovery workshops with our leadership team and ensuring that every solution addresses genuine business needs.”
Kiran Jagannath, Head, FSI and Conglomerates, AWS India and South Asia added, “Cloud and AI are critical enablers of transformation in financial services. This collaboration with HDB Financial Services brings together technology, expertise, and helps solve real business challenges to help startups build solutions that can operate at scale.”
The Ideathon will be conducted in multiple phases, including proposal submissions, shortlisting, mentorship, and final evaluations. Select winners will also receive opportunities for deeper engagement, including potential commercial partnerships and leadership interactions with HDB Financial Services, subject to internal evaluation and applicable requirements.
Through this initiative, HDB Financial Services continues to reinforce its commitment to responsible innovation, technology-led transformation, and long-term value creation within India’s evolving financial services landscape.
