Building the Next Generation of Intelligent Payment Infrastructure – Payment Gateway

Welcome to the Kifiya Inspire Hackathon 2026!

This hackathon brings together innovators, engineers, product managers, designers, data scientists, and business professionals to reimagine the future of digital payments.

As digital commerce continues to evolve, payment infrastructure must become more intelligent, secure, resilient, interoperable, and inclusive. This hackathon challenges participants to build innovative solutions that leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation, analytics, and modern API architectures to solve real-world payment challenges.

Participants are encouraged to develop prototypes or minimum viable products (MVPs) that demonstrate technical innovation while delivering measurable business value.

Design AI-powered payment routing solutions that:

• Route transactions to the optimal payment channel
• Maximize transaction success rates
• Minimize processing costs
• Automatically switch providers during outages

Example: An AI engine that intelligently selects between banks, mobile money, cards, and digital wallets based on transaction success probability.

Build solutions that:

• Expand digital payment access to underserved communities
• Support low-connectivity or offline payment experiences
• Utilize alternative data to build trust and facilitate transactions

Example: An offline-first merchant payment gateway for rural communities.

Develop:

• Payment APIs
• Banking-as-a-Service capabilities
• Developer-friendly financial infrastructure
• Financial integration tools

Example: A unified API connecting banks, wallets, telecom money, and merchants.

Create solutions that:

• Simplify international payments
• Reduce settlement costs
• Improve interoperability
• Increase transparency

Example: An intelligent FX and settlement engine for African payment corridors.

Build intelligent platforms that help merchants:

• Analyze payment behavior
• Predict cash flow
• Monitor business performance
• Receive financing recommendations

Example: An AI-powered merchant dashboard integrated into a payment gateway.

• 1. Problem–Solution Fit (15%)
  Evaluates how well the solution addresses a real payment or financial infrastructure challenge and aligns with the selected hackathon track.
• 2. Innovation & Technical Excellence(20%)
  Assesses originality, technical quality, system design, use of AI or APIs, and the overall robustness of the solution.
• 3. Business Value & Impact (20%)
  Measures the potential business value, customer benefits, operational improvements, and market relevance of the solution.
• 4. Feasibility & Scalability (15%)
  Evaluates whether the solution can be realistically implemented, integrated, and scaled across users, merchants, or markets.
• 5. Security, Risk & Compliance (15%)
  Assesses security, privacy, fraud prevention, reliability, and consideration of regulatory or compliance requirements.
• 6. Customer Experience & Usability (10%)
  Evaluates the ease of use, accessibility, user journey, interface design, and overall customer experience.
• 7.Team Execution & Presentation (5%)
  Assesses the quality of the demo, clarity of the presentation, teamwork, and the team's ability to communicate and answer questions.