Alchemy's conversational banking application advances to Allied Bank Fintech Hackathon semifinals

Alchemy just advanced to the semifinals of Pakistan's biggest fintech hackathon, organized by Allied Bank and LUMS. We're one of only ten teams selected from hundreds of applications across the country. Winners get direct implementation within Allied Bank's mobile ecosystem - translating to immediate access to millions of users.

The 100M+ Underserved Problem

Pakistan has 100+ million underserved adults - 55 million completely unbanked and 47 million with unused accounts they've abandoned due to complex interfaces. That's two-thirds of the adult population locked out of meaningful financial access. Current banking apps assume English proficiency and digital literacy, which explains why only 52% of account holders actually use their accounts regularly.

BAINK solves this through natural conversation in local languages - Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto - handling code-switching and cultural contexts:

"Ali ko 3000 rupay bhejo" - Send money in seconds.
"Mera bijli ka bill pay kar do" - Pay bills naturally.
"Is mahine kitne paise kharch kiye?" - Get insights instantly.

Early testing shows remarkable sub-15 second transaction times for nearly all queries, regardless of literacy level.

Global Market Reality

This extends far beyond Pakistan. Indonesia has 97.7 million unbanked adults (48% of its adult population) across hundreds of local languages. Saudi Arabia and other GCC markets face similar challenges with Arabic dialects and cultural banking preferences. The global unbanked population is 1.7 billion people.

Every market where financial exclusion intersects with linguistic diversity represents an opportunity for conversational AI and therefore BAINK.

Banking Through Conversation

For consumer banking, conversation is the natural interface. Financial transactions are time-sensitive, happen while multitasking, and require immediate context. Voice eliminates friction where graphical interfaces create barriers - especially in markets with linguistic diversity and varying digital literacy.

BAINK demonstrates this transformation in action. The future of consumer banking is conversational and near invisible - and we're building it, one conversation at a time.