€15,000 and a pilot with a bank: FinQuest 2026 closes 20 September

If you have been sitting on an AI or fintech idea and waiting for a reason to write it up, here is one with a date on it: Alpha Bank's FinQuest 2026 accepts applications until 20 September.

This year's edition is explicitly pan-European — startups, fintech companies and scale-ups from across the continent, Cyprus included, are invited to submit solutions aimed at the banking sector.

Four tracks, all AI-heavy

• AI First Banking & Value Transformation — AI, automation and advanced analytics applied to banking operations, productivity and decision-making.
• Fraud Zero & Digital Trust — fraud prevention, cyber security, digital identity and trust, without wrecking the customer experience.
• Next Generation Customer Experience — conversational AI, hyper-personalisation and digital onboarding across physical and digital channels.
• Open Innovation & Emerging Technologies — anything that opens genuinely new value for financial services.

What you actually get

After applications close, an evaluation committee picks the six strongest proposals. Those teams join a two-month accelerator running through October and November 2026 — mentoring, workshops, networking and ongoing support — then pitch at a dedicated innovation event where three winners are chosen.

The overall winner takes a €15,000 cash prize, builds a pilot project with Alpha Bank in a real banking environment, and gets access to the bank's business stakeholders with a route to a broader commercial partnership.

The bank notes that finalists benefit regardless of ranking: direct access to executives actively hunting for technology, specialist feedback, and the possibility of being picked for a pilot or partnership later.

For a small Cyprus team, that combination — a named deadline, a real prize and a named bank willing to run a pilot — is a more concrete outcome than most open calls offer.

Deadline: 20 September 2026. Details and application form on the FinQuest 2026 page.

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