Personal Economic Trainer

Explore how AI can turn personal banking data into a trusted financial coach for everyday life.

S-Bank is Finland’s fourth-largest bank, with 3.5 million customers, and its S-mobiili app is used weekly by one in three Finnish adults. We want to reimagine personal finance by letting people talk with their own financial data through AI. Banking today often stops at statements and transaction lists. We want to make it conversational, insightful, and personalised. At Junction, we invite you to help us build the next generation of AI-driven personal economic trainers that make money matters simple and engaging for everyone.

Using a large synthetic transaction dataset modelled on real S-Bank data, build an AI experience that lets people chat with their own money, from simple questions like “How much did I spend on taxis last month?” to deeper ones like “What kind of spender am I?”, “What is safe for me to spend this week?” or “How much could I save if I reduced dining out by 20%?”.

We value a pedagogical angle: everyone’s spending falls into three baskets:

1. mandatory and regular (e.g. rent)
2. mandatory and irregular (e.g. a broken washing machine), and
3. everyday spending that slips through your fingers (e.g. coffees) — and solutions that help people understand where their money really goes will go far with us.

Think in the spirit of MyData: let users explore their own data freely rather than showing fixed charts the bank has picked for them. You can enhance these insights with open data sources (e.g., Statistics Finland) to offer meaningful benchmarks.

Recommended output: a mobile app, or a web app that can be embedded in a mobile app — our customers are on mobile.

Extra details: To our knowledge, no Finnish bank yet lets customers chat with their own financial data, making this a first-of-its-kind opportunity in Finnish banking. The challenge ties directly to S- Bank’s strategy of serving customers increasingly digitally and to our vision for S-mobiili. One of the top-rated finance apps on both Google Play and the App Store, so a winning idea could reach millions of people. Money matters touch everyone, and we believe AI can play a key role in improving financial literacy — especially among young adults.

About the Company S-Bank is Finland’s fourth-largest bank, serving 3.5 million customers nationwide. Our mission is to make everyday banking simple, rewarding, and accessible to everyone. We believe in combining strong financial expertise with innovative technology to create solutions that genuinely improve people’s lives. Junction offers us a unique opportunity to co-create with some of the world’s brightest developers and to explore new ways AI can reshape personal finance.

We are especially interested in conversational AI that explains financial concepts in plain language, simulates “what if” scenarios, and guides users toward healthier money habits, for example through safe-to-spend and safe-to-save guidance. Benchmarking personal data against open population data is encouraged but not mandatory.

Optional bonus angle (not required, the challenge is fully solvable with the provided data and open data):

• Multi-bank view: under PSD2, customers can let their bank fetch account data from other banks. How could an AI coach use the customer’s full financial picture?

Data

Using a large synthetic transaction dataset modelled on the structure of S-Bank data

Mentors

• Carl-Edvard (Calle) Holmberg – Chief Innovation Officer
• Representative from S-Bank IT / AI development
• Data Scientist (transaction data expert)
• 1–2 business representatives who own the customer problem

Main contact: Carl-Edvard (Calle) Holmberg

You may find the data through here