Pan African banking group Ecobank announced on Wednesday the finalists for of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge 2018, a competition for Africa-focused technology start-ups. The bank confirmed the list includes 11 fintech start-ups from across the continent and beyond. As previously reported, the Challenge’s contestants must be one of the following categories:
Remittances- Digital Sales/Marketing
- Offline mobile to mobile payments
- Digital Onboarding/ Account Opening/ KYC
- SME Intra-Africa Trade Platform
- Multi-Channel Corporate Payments/ Collections Ecosystems
The ten selected will go through a phase of pitches and a panel of judges will select the top three and award them $10,000 (first), $7,000 (second), and $5,000 (third). The finalists selected are Lypa (Kenya), Wallet.ng (Nigeria), Nala (Tanzania), Litee (Benin), SESO Global (South Africa), InvestED (Sierra Leone), Eversend (France), Secapay (Nigeria), Virtual Identity (South Africa), MojiPay (Togo), Awamo (Germany).
Ecobank revealed that following the After the Awards ceremony, which will take place on August 30th at the global headquarters of Ecobank in Lomé, Togo, the banking group will enroll all eleven finalists into the Ecobank Fintech Fellowship. The Fellowship will run for a period of six months during which Ecobank Fintech Fellows will benefit from an opportunity to further explore partnerships with the Ecobank Group that includes:
- Multinational product roll-out support: for the start-ups deemed commercially viable to grow their businesses across any of Ecobank’s 33 markets in Africa
- Service provider & ecosystem partner deals: for start-ups with deep capabilities to become product partners within Ecobank’s ecosystem
- Technical & mentoring support: during the six months fellowship period, fellows will benefit from technical support from Ecobank’s global network of technology leaders, fintech experts, investors and management coaches
Speaking about the finalists, Group CEO of Ecobank, Ade Ayeyemi, stated:
“At Ecobank our digital strategy is spectacularly successful and has changed the landscape of African banking, so it goes without saying that we see fintech as a vital component for the economic transformation of the continent and the prosperity of its citizens. We want to do all we can to encourage the next generations of fintech entrepreneurs as they will be a driving force in propelling Africa into a globally competitive power in commercial services, enjoying significantly increased market share.”
Eddy Ogbogu, Ecobank Group Executive for Operations and Technology, added:
“Africa has a proud history of innovation, and today’s fintech start-ups are the potential giants of tomorrow. We’re delighted by the quality of our Fintech Challenge finalists and have high hopes that they will capitalise on the mentoring and support opportunities of the Ecobank competition on their journeys to future success.”