SAN JOSE, Calif. — P2P payments are picking up, thanks to the work of companies like the DEMOvation Challenge winner PayKey.

Israeli startup Paykey was declared ‘best in show’ for Bank Innovation’s DEMOvation challenge yesterday, proving that enabling clear, frictionless P2P payments is still a service where banks (and consumers) are clamoring for innovation.

The win was decided by a panel of esteemed judges including Jason Zaler, lead for fintech partnerships at PwC; Brad Leimer, technologist and a former head of innovation at Santander; Matt Wilcox, senior vice president of innovation for Firserv; and Dan Kimerling, head of API, open banking, and R&D for Silicon Valley Bank.

PayKey was chosen from a pool of ten fintech finalists that had the opportunity to give a short demonstration to the crowd of innovative bankers and fintech enthusiasts at the event.

The challenge runner-up was business intelligence company SizeUp, which provides tools and data analytics in its platform in order to show businesses a real-time view of their competition, the state of the industry, and the best locations to advertise the brand.

Rather than replace a bank, PayKey aims to leverage the existing banking networks, just in a slightly different place than the norm: social media. The goal is really to provide more transparency by taking banks right to where their end users spend most of the time.

Based in Tel Aviv, PayKey provides payment solutions no matter the medium; whether users wish to send money through Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Twitter.

Users get the ease of sending money through their favorite networks, while enabling banks and FIs to place their brand front and center during a payments transaction.

For its win, PayKey received the very best in fintech swag: an Amazon gift card and an Echo device, which hopefully the startup will put to good use.

Will there be a PayKey Alexa skill in the future? We’ll have to wait and see.