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Sopra Banking Software launches its Marketplace and consolidates its open FinTech ecosystem strategy

A uniquely integrated international fintech ecosystem that allows customers to make online money transfers using mobile money, bank account transfers, and cash pick-up services. We built Africa’s first truly global super app to help drive our ‘financial inclusion for all’ vision. A multi-service technology platform that brings together digital payment solutions, on-demand services, instant messaging, and digital media services in a single, easy-to-use mobile application. In some of our key markets across Africa, we have been able to drive financial inclusion from under 10% to 70-80% through solutions that have helped to create thousands of jobs and business opportunities for young entrepreneurs.

Our integrated platform offers multi-mobile financial services programmes, which depending on the target market, can be tailored to suit banked, unbanked and under-banked customer segments. We offer a rich pipeline of innovative use cases, including micro-loans, micro-savings (for individuals or groups), mobile business wallets, international remittances, and merchant payment solutions.

Fawry Plus is the first banking agent authorized by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), providing diverse banking and financial services, in addition to other unique services, to individuals and businesses through a network or retail branches. Fawry Plus aims to cover all Egypt, especially the areas that have an insufficient number of financial institutions compared to the population density. With Fawry Plus, financial services will become easier and more convenient.

Fawry is educating unbanked population to trust electronic payments. Fawry would not have existed in a mature economy, where electronic payments are dominant. In that sense, Fawry is filling a gap left by banking players in Egypt.

One of the most striking differences between banking in Europe and in Egypt is cash management. Withdrawals and deposits of cash are the dominant operations in the Egyptian banking branches. It is frequent to meet customers with big bags of money in or out of banking branches. In Europe, anti-money laundering laws and electronic payments popularity made large cash operations extremely rare.

The success of Fawry comes from leveraging the best of the 2 means of payment: cash for its reliability and availability, and electronic systems for their seamless and fast processing.

We improve on partnerships focusing on leveraging on existing infrastructure such as distribution systems sides for cost effective operations. Partnerships that aim to drive innovation by exposing prebuilt APIs. For instance, access to accounts, transaction history, know your customer, or metadata enhancements.  

Visa and Fawry sign strategic partnership to accelerate digital payments acceptance

One of the key solutions that the partnership aims to address is the need to enable a digital ecosystem that easily supports the needs of consumers and merchants. Through Visa Direct’s peer to peer transfer and low cost QR solutions, millions of customers – regardless of who they bank with – would be able to make peer to peer and business to business transactions easily and securely so they can move money in real time.

In order to prevent fraudulent transactions, Paga has put certain measures in place to protect its users. A user logging into an unrecognized device, for example, will have to answer a couple of security questions before proceeding. Again, every transaction using Paga has to be finalized with a personal PIN known only to the user.

That’s how mobile money accounts first came about. Mobile money apps don’t require a brick-and-mortar bank, but they otherwise end up functioning a lot like a bank account and debit card would for an American — meaning your average person in Kenya with such an account now has access to most of the same financial services a person in the US does. Mobile money got off the ground early in the developing world, where people used texting-based services before smartphones became common. There were early attempts to set up such systems in the 2000s in South Africa and the Philippines. But the breakthrough was the extraordinary early success of Kenya’s M-Pesa, which actually predates apps like Venmo. (“Pesa” is Swahili for money; the “M” stands for “mobile.”) The project that became M-Pesa started in 2002 when phone companies noticed that they had unintentionally invented something that almost resembled a currency.

Savings and investing is a critical part of building wealth and economic development, and Egypt’s youth needs a mobile-first platform like Thndr to open the floodgates of investing in the coming decades. Platforms like Thndr have seen great success in other markets across the world, and Thndr is built with keen attention to the local nuances and preferences of the Egyptian investor in mind.

Egyptian mobile investment app, Thndr has become the first brokerage firm to receive regulatory approval from the Financial Regulatory Association (FRA) in the last 12 years. The financial startup allows users to link their Egyptian bank account, and trade, invest, and profit from Egyptian stocks, bonds, and indices. The decision by FRA to give the startup regulatory approval comes after Egypt reforms its financial regulations on new companies with the recently approved Banking Act passed last month which allows more companies to become involved with financial trading and investment.

Before the passing of the Banking Act in July 2020, the only financial apps available for Egyptians were applications that helped you put aside money for saving. However, that is set to change as companies like Thndr take advantage of the new space given to financial technology companies to allow users to invest in the Egyptian stock exchange from their homes. Stock investment apps have become popular in the last few years as a way to not only save money but to make savings grow over time. While there is always risk involved with stock trading, Thndr hoping to provide users with education on how to invest in order to be more financial secure.

A new service will enable the bank’s customers living internationally to send money to friends and family in Kenya via SimbaPay’s app. The service is initially available for the UK-Kenya payments corridor, with other countries to follow soon.

“With Masterpass, we’re enabling consumers to make secure and simple everyday payments wherever they are and from any connected device, without needing to physically carry their bank cards with them,” says Mark Elliott, Division President, Mastercard, South Africa. “Thanks to our collaboration with SnapScan, we are pleased to offer consumers even more places to pay using Masterpass, which is now the most widely accepted digital wallet in South Africa.”Since its launch in 2013, SnapScan has grown its acceptance exponentially, especially among small businesses that traditionally did not have access to traditional Point of Sale devices and relied on cash payments. It makes accepting digital card payments cheap and easy, with merchants simply needing to display a QR code at the till, online or on a bill.“Given SnapScan’s extensive acceptance footprint, the ability to offer merchants a single QR code, which will accept payment from multiple mobile wallet solutions such as Masterpass, is the driving force behind creating interoperability,” says Lincoln Mali, head of group card and payments at Standard Bank. “We believe that interoperability between digital payments platforms is one of the keys to driving digital payments usage and acceptance in South Africa.”

Each Masterpass transaction is classified as an Authenticated Mobile Transaction by South African banks, ensuring that consumers enjoy the highest protection from fraudsters.

Latest figures put the value of the cryptocurrency market at almost $240bn in 2019, nearly double the 2018 figure of $128bn. Could this mean that the global crypto market is starting to move into the mainstream? Significantly, the sector is enjoying rapid growth globally, with the UK, Nigeria, Australia, Canada, Mexico and India all experiencing a recent surge in users. Crypto is also starting to attract interest from institutional investors, which see it as possible insurance against the global rise in quantitative easing.

The big banking brands have shown little interest in cryptocurrency to date. In part, this is due to their general aversion to high levels of risk and an institutionalised culture ill suited to digital change and innovation – but there is also a legitimate fear that they will fall foul of financial regulators. 

It stands to reason that cryptocurrency exchanges are well positioned and strongly motivated to exploit the narrowing gap between crypto and fiat – because they have first-move advantage. Having already built huge cash reserves and crypto-familiar customer bases, it would be relatively straightforward technically for them to add on banking services. 

The purpose of this study was to establish the effects of implementation of Fintech strategies on competitiveness in the banking sector in Kenya

BenefitsOffering a distinctive integration and management service with various redemption channels. Giving our clients points at their top favorite brands. Providing Customer convenience and ensure a better experience. Increasing customers loyalty and retention through engaging activities and programs. Boosting disbursement pattern motivating them by earning and burning points.

How it works?

Customer Problem: With excessive charges, high minimum investment required with complicated KYC processes and low interest rates, those wanting to save will typically avoid using their bank accounts. Instead savings are stored in cash or mobile money, with their value steadily decreasing due to high rates of inflation.

Competitive Advantage: ● Only company Mobile Money subscription payment in West Africa ● First Mover Advantage in Ghana ● Pan African team with previous founding experience ● Highly Scalable business model due to adoption Mobile Money in Africa ● Viral and high network effects inherent in our services enabling us to grow fast with less cost

Cassava FinTech is a pan-African business using an integrated model to drive financial inclusion and digital transactions across the continent. Our core operations in Mobile Money, Social Payments Services, Digital Banking, International Remittances and Mobile Micro Insurance with presence in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Burundi, Lesotho and UK and partnerships in other African countries

Cassava FinTech is a pan-African business using an integrated model to drive financial inclusion and digital transactions across the continent. Our core operations in Mobile Money, Social Payments Services, Digital Banking, International Remittances and Mobile Micro Insurance with presence in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Burundi, Lesotho and UK and partnerships in other African countries.