The Challenge will award one $50,000 Grand Prize and three $10,000 awards to finalists.
Applications open: April 20, 2026
Deadline: May 22, 2026 at 23:59 ET
*Please kindly note that the application form will not save your progress. For your convenience, please use the Trust by Design application guide to preview questions before formally filling out the form.
Challenge overview
The Trust by Design Fintech Challenge recognizes organizations designing fintech solutions that improve safety, transparency, and trust, especially for women who have traditionally been excluded from financial systems. The Challenge seeks market-tested solutions that demonstrate how data, customer-centric product design, and responsible safeguards can strengthen trust, reduce harm, and improve adoption among women.
Winners will receive financial awards, be recognized as industry innovators in trust-centered fintech, and gain visibility with investors and the broader financial services industry through curated events, publications, and showcases.
If you are:
- A fintech
- A financial institution
- A service provider or partner to a fintech or financial institution
- An organization embedding financial services into its product or platform
And you have a solution that:
- Is digitally enabled
- Is already in the market
- Demonstrates measurable improvements in safety and trust
- Uses gender-disaggregated data to improve product design
Then we want to hear from you.
See more below for full eligibility requirements.
Full eligibility requirements
About 740 million women globally remain financially excluded, representing more than half of the world’s unbanked population.
One major barrier to financial inclusion for many excluded groups is a lack of trust. One in five unbanked adults in low- and middle-income countries cite it as a key reason for staying out of the financial system. Digital financial services are helping to close the financial inclusion gap, but they can only achieve sustained adoption if users trust them. Customers must feel confident that products are transparent, fair, and designed with their interests in mind. Yet across many markets, trust remains fragile. Concerns about fraud, opaque pricing, over-indebtedness, data misuse, and aggressive collection practices discourage customers from adopting or continuing to use financial services.
We believe that trust is not only a social good — it is a commercial imperative. Products designed around customer realities often demonstrate stronger repayment behavior, higher retention, and more durable growth. For providers competing in emerging markets, trust-centered design has proven to provide a competitive advantage.
Across markets, fintechs are working to address these issues. Many are improving underwriting, strengthening fraud detection, and building more transparent and responsible products.
Some providers are going further by introducing intentional design choices that reduce harm and improve customer understanding. This includes features such as additional prompts that encourage users to review key terms and interactive tools that help customers recognize and avoid fraud. Others are integrating gender-disaggregated data into product design, underwriting, and serving to better understand where risks to women’s financial security emerge and how outcomes might differ across customer groups.
The Trust by Design Fintech Challenge aims to spotlight and elevate these types of approaches. The goal is not only to recognize strong leaders in the space, but also to demonstrate that trust-centered design is good business.
The Trust by Design Fintech Challenge is open to organizations providing digital financial services or enabling technologies with solutions already live in-market. Applicants should have demonstrated traction and early evidence that their solution improves safety, transparency, or utilization in financial services. We are not looking for pilots or prototypes.
Eligible applicants may include (but are not limited to):
- Fintech companies (including lenders and neobanks)
- Financial institutions and microfinance institutions (MFIs)
- Technology providers supporting financial services
- Platforms embedding financial products such as payments, credit, insurance, or savings
Eligible applicants typically:
- Offer digitally enabled financial services or embed financial functionality into part of their product or platform
- Have solutions already in use by customers
- Demonstrate measurable improvements in safety, transparency, or customer trust
- Use gender-disaggregated data to inform product design, risk management, or customer protection
- Serve women customers with evidence of active usage
- Operate in at least one emerging market, or have credible plans to expand into one
“Credible plans” means the organization has a clear operational strategy, partnerships, licensing pathway, or active deployments demonstrating a realistic path to serving customers in LMICs contexts.
Strong applicants will use gender-disaggregated data to inform product design and customer protection.
One $50,000 Grand Prize will be awarded to support continued innovation in trust-centered fintech.
Three finalists will each receive $10,000 awards.
Each challenge winner will also receive a complimentary ticket to attend the Fintech for Inclusion Global Summit, 2026 in London U.K., plus airfare and hotel accommodation for their attendee. Winners will also be featured in an industry toolkit highlighting innovations in trust-building in fintech, serving as a lasting resource for the sector. There will also be opportunities for sector recognition and visibility among a global network of impact and commercial investors.
- Applications Open — April 20, 2026
- Application Deadline — May 22, 2026, at 23:59 EDT (UTC-4); Applications must be submitted by this deadline. Late submissions will not be accepted.
- Semi‑finalists will be notified by June 2, 2026
- Winners Notified — By July 17, 2026
Review the official challenge rules here.
Have Some Questions?
Trust by Design Fintech Challenge Partners
Funded by the Gates Foundation
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. Open to all fintechs, represented by an applicant at least 18 years old at the time of entry. Begins 12:00AM EDT on April 20, 2026 and ends 11:59PM EDT on July 17, 2026. To enter, complete and submit an application by 11:59PM EDT on May 22, 2026. Winners will be selected by a panel of qualified judges based on highest scoring evaluations. Total ARV of all prizes: $94,000. For full Official Rules, visit http://bit.ly/TrustByDesignRules. Sponsored by Accion.