(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/ilbusca)

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is partnering with the Open Bank Project (OBP) for their Hack / Make The Bank hackathon which aims to improve the digital offerings provided by financial institutions. 

Set to be held in Edinburgh on the weekend of the 9th of October, Hack / Make The Bank is described by OBP as a "creative marathon of brainstorming and software building". Coders of varying levels of experience will come together with innovators, entrepreneurs, and designers to form small teams aiming to create innovative web and mobile applications. 

The Open Bank Project is an open-source collection of APIs for developers to quickly interact with a large range of banks. On the project's website, the creators say you can - 

• Integrate bank account information via REST API  
• Use secure authentication via our OAuth implementation  
• Write once - run everywhere.  
• Leverage a consistent and bank-agnostic interface  
• Gain attention through a dedicated App Store 

During the Hack / Make The Bank hackathon last year, developers created a range of useful tools and applications. One team even adopted a crowdfunding model to create a method for customers to invest in a proportion of properties and live in them paying rent to other funders, or vice-versa. 

Banking is one area which it's clear the industry feels hackathons offer an opportunity to disrupt alongside new technologies. Here on Hackfest we've covered several hackathons from the financial sector in recent months; including the ever-popular 'Masters of Code' hackathon series by MasterCard. 

Find out more information on their website here. 

Have you had experience with the API provided by the Open Bank Project? Let us know in the comments below.