140 programmers meet at the "la Caixa" 24 hour international marathon for creating financial 'apps'

The FinAppsParty 2012 winner takes a 10,000 euro prize

• "la Caixa" recognises a team of two programmers for creating, in 24 hours, a mobile geopositioning application that locates retailers.
• Due to the high quality of the entries, "la Caixa" awarded an additional prize to an electronic payment application that uses 3D animations and elements from videogames.

An application that uses mobile geopositioning to locate "la Caixa" customer retailers and to share information about them via social networks has won the 10,000 euro prize for the best application created during the FinAppsParty programming marathon, organised by "la Caixa" in partnership with Barcelona Digital Centre Tecnològic.

The application was created by a team of two programmers, Valentí Freixanet and Erola Rabat, in just 24 hours.

FinAppsParty is a financial services mobile application programming marathon organised by "la Caixa" in Barcelona for the second consecutive year, in partnership with the Barcelona Digital Centre Tecnològic. The event is aimed at promoting the development of innovative financial services internationally.

Over an uninterrupted 24 hours participants were required to develop prototypes for new applications that would provide innovative mobile banking services.

The 2012 event attracted specialists in application development from all over the world. Teams taking part in FinAppsParty hailed from both Spain and abroad, including representatives from Mexico, Kenya, Israel and the United Kingdom.

"la Caixa" fosters mobile banking innovation

Meanwhile, an application that allows costs to be shared and to collect money for a specific purpose has won the 2,000 euro runner-up prize. The application, which receives funds from other users via NFC and "bump" (Bluetooth) technology, was developed by Alejandro Vidal, Jonatan Tierno, Gustavo Giudici and Jaume Alcañiz.

Due to the high quality of the applications submitted during FinAppsParty, "la Caixa" decided to award a third prize of 2,000 euro to a team made up by César Rincón, Albert Mañá, Josep Oriol Mañá and Marcel Vañó, who created an electronic payment system for retailers based on 3D animations and elements borrowed from videogames.

"la Caixa" will assess the winning ideas with a view to potentially adopting them commercially.

"la Caixa": 4 million downloads of its more than 60 applications

"la Caixa" currently has the largest number of mobile banking users in Spain, with more than 2.6 million customers using mobile services (including alerts, enquiries and transaction services via mobile devices). The more than 60 applications provided by the bank have been downloaded 4 million times. The applications are available for free via CaixaMóvil Store, the bank's own applications store, as well as download stores run by the leading manufacturers.