Criteria
What does a winning idea look like?
The BAI Global Innovation Awards are not limited to specific categories — instead, innovations can be anything related to the financial services industry that improves business or retail customer relationships, fosters organizational improvement or serves communities.
Remember, not all innovation is about technology. Think about organizational innovation, strategy innovation, process innovation, etc.
Submissions will be assessed based on the following criteria:
| Criteria | What we are looking for: |
|---|---|
| Potential for market impact | e.g., Size of market
Importance of innovation given market needs Addresses a fundamental problem for employees, customers or other stakeholders |
| Strength of vision | Quality of thought, analysis, insights and critical thinking shaping the vision and goals |
| Strength of metrics | Use of data and facts to drive decisions; strength of business model |
| Strength of team and delivery | Demonstrated quality of execution; ability to recover from the inevitable challenges in implementing an innovation Diversity of team (team composition) cross-functional team, how the team operated |
| Use of innovation “best practices” | Demonstrated use of proven practices to increase the odds of success |
Submissions must be for innovations that have been taken to market and tested, at the minimum, as prototypes (we are not accepting submissions for ideas or concepts that have not been advanced to at least an early stage of market validation and are supported by concrete evidence of market potential). Awards may recognize organizations, teams, and/or individuals within those organizations.
Your submission will be reviewed by The Innovation Circle, a select panel of distinguished judges and advisors from around the world, who are at the forefront of innovation in the financial services sector. Together with BAI leadership, they will review submissions, identify potential award nominees for consideration and select category finalists and winners.
Who can submit?
We encourage self-nomination from leading financial services organizations, including banks, neobanks, credit unions and insurance companies, as well as solutions providers and FinTechs who provide financial services offerings directly to consumers. Non-financial services organizations, such as industry vendors, media and PR agencies, and analysts are not eligible, but may nominate a financial service or banking client for the awards.
If you have any questions about which bucket your innovation may fall under, please feel free to email at [email protected] .
The June 30 deadline will be here before you know it, so we encourage you to start working on your nominations now. All applications must be submitted via the awards portal.