What is the Ideathon?

The Ideathon is a competition held every year at the Digital Innovation Summit, where we look for ideas and innovations that can help progress a set area. In 2024, it was ISO20022, and in 2025, it was account-to-account customer journeys.

The Ideathon is open to everyone – you do not have to be a member of UK Finance to enter.

2026 Ideathon - A2A@POS

UK Finance is pleased to confirm this year’s Ideathon will be on account-to-account payments at point of sale (A2A@PoS). The National Payments Vision called for greater choice, competition and resilience in UK retail payments. This initiative supports wider industry work to modernise retail payments by enabling merchants and consumers to benefit from the choice of secure, efficient and resilient payment options at the point of sale. We have chosen A2A@PoS as it is very much a nascent area, and we believe this is a key initiative that will support the delivery of the National Payments Vision and further improve the payment journeys. 

How do you enter?

The entry requirements are as follows:

  1. A PDF presentation explaining the idea.
  2. A five-minute (maximum) video to accompany it. It is fine to use a phone or similar, the submission isn’t being judged on the cinematography.

The Ideathon is all about ideas and innovation - there are no set categories or limitations, but some ideas to get you thinking could be on how A2A@PoS could:

  • Deliver innovative or new use cases.
  • Improve payment journeys.
  • Provide benefits to some/all of the payment chain stakeholders.

However, these are just starting points - we welcome all ideas and innovations.

The deadline for entry is Friday, 22 May. 

What happens next?

All entries will be scored by a panel of judges. There are four main criteria, which will all be given equal weighting:

  1. Problem statement
  • size and/or criticality of the issue, as well as a well-crafted problem statement.
  1. Solution approach
  • a clear solution approach which acknowledges challenges, risks and concerns.
  1. Opportunities and benefits
  • tangible benefits such as revenue, cost savings, improvements in the payment process,  
  • and/or intangible benefits such as customer/merchant experience.
  • we recognise these might be mutually exclusive e.g. something that significantly enhances customer experience might not necessarily be a cost savings.
  1. Implementation
  • realism and achievability in the context of current capabilities.
  • if a new capability, the likelihood of its achievement.
  • in either case, a clear demonstration that implementation is achievable e.g. clearly identifies what will need to be done, identifies and mitigates challenges, demonstrates a clear path to real-world application.

The final

The judges will select the finalists, not the winner. The finalists will present their idea live at the Digital Innovation Summit on 25 June to the audience and take questions from the judges. The winner will be decided by the audience and announced at the event.

Last year, NatWest took the top spot with their ‘Pay as you park’ idea, a simple concept with real-world impact. Reflecting on the experience, they said:

The UK Finance Ideathon was a great opportunity to showcase the creativity of colleagues in NatWest, allowing us to think outside of the box and demonstrate our talent and customer focus to the market.

Please send your submissions by Friday, 22 May to ideathon.dis@ukfinance.org.uk. You can also use that contact for any questions/queries regarding the Ideathon.

Area of expertise:
Payments, innovation & resilience