Five Years of Digital Innovation, Smartly Shaping the Future — Xiamen International Bank Has Held the "Digital Innovation Finance Cup" Competition for Five Consecutive Years, Accelerating the Development of Fintech

As a flagship event dedicated to deepening digital finance, exploring artificial intelligence, and promoting industry-academia-research integration, the “Digital Innovation Finance Cup” Modeling Competition has successfully held five consecutive editions since its inception in 2019. This important achievement, jointly created by Xiamen International Bank and the Data Mining Research Center at Xiamen University, has attracted over 6,700 participants and sparked enthusiastic responses from all sectors of society.

From machine learning risk control to generative AI large models, the five editions of the “Digital Innovation Finance Cup” competition outline the technological evolution of financial technology from “data-driven” to “intelligent-driven.” Centered on the core concepts of “digital driving” and “technology empowerment,” the competition has become a vital bridge connecting universities, banks, and society. Its outstanding contributions to promoting industry-academia-research integration and enhancing digital literacy nationwide have led to its inclusion in the 2022 “Chuangxiang China” series of activities, recognition as one of the top ten outstanding cases in “Xiamen Financial Technology Practice (2019-2023),” and as a typical case for “Enhancing National Digital Literacy and Skills” by the Xiamen Cyberspace Administration in 2025. It vividly reflects the high-quality development of fintech in Fujian Province.

First Edition: Risk Control Set Sail, Laying the Foundation for Industry-Academia-Research Cooperation (2019-2020)

As the first major practice of the “Digital Innovation” joint innovation laboratory, the inaugural “Digital Innovation Finance Cup” focused on financial risk control modeling, emphasizing the use of machine learning methods to improve banks’ credit risk assessment and prediction capabilities. Participants developed risk evaluation models based on core banking risk control needs, providing diverse solutions for digital transformation and visually demonstrating the value of data assets in finance.

The competition established a national platform for fintech technical exchange, enabling deep integration of real-world financial scenarios with data modeling techniques. It laid the groundwork for a “learning through competition, research through competition, application through competition” approach, accumulating valuable experience for future development.

Second Edition: Focus on Marketing, Uncover New Value of Data Elements (2021)

Following the wave of digital transformation in finance, the second edition centered on customer churn prediction, expanding the application scope of the competition. Participants used real bank customer data to build customer profiles and insights, enabling proactive marketing. This edition emphasized practical application of technical results, providing important references for banks to serve customers precisely and optimize operational efficiency.

Third Edition: Intelligent Marketing, Building a New Paradigm of Industry-Technology Integration (2022)

Building on two previous editions, the third “Digital Innovation Finance Cup” was included in the “Chuangxiang China” series, becoming part of a national innovation competition matrix and significantly increasing its influence. The theme focused on precise marketing of wealth products, predicting the likelihood of financial product purchases based on user behavior data, and designing comprehensive marketing solutions accordingly. In the semi-finals, participant proposals were directly integrated into actual marketing processes, with business outcomes serving as the core criterion for finals, enabling rapid transformation of “competition plans” into “business results.”

Fourth Edition: Overcoming OCR Technical Challenges (2023-2024)

The fourth edition focused on improving operational efficiency by utilizing unstructured data for the first time, tackling information extraction from paper vouchers, addressing issues like handwritten recognition and table misalignment. The top 16 teams achieved recognition accuracy rates above 90%, significantly improving voucher verification efficiency and reducing operational risks. The competition deepened the application of AI technologies (deep learning, OCR) in banking scenarios, driving process automation.

Fifth Edition: Infinite Digital Innovation, Entering the New Era of Large Model Technology (2025)

Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Xiamen International Bank, the fifth edition was fully upgraded to feature dual tracks: “Internal” and “External,” focusing on large model application challenges.

The internal track targeted all bank employees, aiming to promote “learning through competition, applying through learning,” fostering deep integration of AI with banking operations, and inspiring innovation across the organization to embed digital thinking at the front lines.

The external track included “Policy Document Q&A” and “Document Intelligent Review” phases, addressing key pain points in processing vast policy documents, regulatory frameworks, and business documents. Participants employed cutting-edge technologies such as RAG, knowledge graphs, and intelligent agents to develop accurate, compliant, and practical intelligent solutions.

This edition closely followed the generative AI wave, running parallel tracks to gather social innovation forces and stimulate internal creativity, providing valuable experience for exploring large model applications in complex banking scenarios. The event received coverage from mainstream media such as Xinhua News Agency and became a highlight of Xiamen International Bank’s 40th-anniversary celebrations, showcasing significant technological achievements.

The evolution of the five “Digital Innovation Finance Cup” competitions vividly reflects Xiamen International Bank’s commitment to fintech development and digital transformation. The event has built a nationwide platform for AI modeling exchange, promoted digital transformation concepts, generated positive social influence, and fostered deep cooperation among universities, enterprises, and society. Many participating projects have been successfully incubated and applied in real business scenarios, strongly supporting the digital evolution of the financial industry.

Looking ahead, Xiamen International Bank will continue to uphold the philosophy of “Smart Innovation, Digital Leadership,” focusing on deep AI applications, integrating AI into smart risk control, marketing, operations, and decision-making. The bank aims to empower employees with more convenient tools, provide customers with smarter services, and strive to make a new leap from “digital transformation practitioners” to “leaders in smart finance.”