Kenyan based Pezesha wins CATAPULT: Inclusion Africa Awards.

Kenyan based Pezesha wins CATAPULT: Inclusion Africa Awards.

Pezesha, a Kenya-based financial startup has emerged the winner of The Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoft) booth-camp held on March 8 in Luxembourg.

The program, CATAPULT: Inclusion Africa aimed at providing training and networking boot-camp for 13 Financial Technology (Fintech) companies whose primary goal is to develop financial inclusion in Africa.

The selected startups were; A-Trader and digital Wallet Dundiza from Tanzania, Esusu and PaddyCover from Nigeria, CinetPay an Ivory Coast-based payments startup, Eversend from Uganda, Exuus Rwandan savings startup, People’s Pension Trust from Ghana, Pezesha, Kenyan digital financial marketplace, SmartTeller a digital banking platform, OZÈ , uKheshe South African payments startup and Simplifi a UK based start-up.

Pazesha is the Kenyan based startup that emerged winner of this year’s CATAPULT Awards. It is a Holistic Digital Financial Performance & Infrastructure for Underserved MSMEs in Africa. Offering lending, financial education, and debt counseling to borrowers, plus a proprietary credit scoring System to vet MSMEs without a credit history, de-risking lending to SMEs. The CEO of Pazesha is Hilda Mora Mora’s.

A-Trader is a Tanzania based startup. They provide automated investment recommendations for Africa’s growing middle class through real-time access to Africa’s Stock Markets, savings/investment options, and easily understandable structured financial instruments.

CinetPay from Ivory Coast is mobile money, credit card and other wallet payment gateway allowing e-commerce sites,  e-service, companies, and institutions to accept all means of payment online or offline in 8 countries in Africa.

Dundiza in Tanzania is the first digital wallet platform that enables young people and women living in marginalized communities to securely save and manage their money instantly while being to gain competitive interest and access credit scoring from the savings.

Esusu Africa Limited, Nigerian based startup is tackling the problems of informal savings schemes across Africa. We do this through ELECTRONIC ESUSU, a  digital platform designed to simplify thrift savings, collections, and microcredit towards enhancing the delivery of digital financial services to the last mile.

Eversend from Uganda is building a neobank for Africans, anywhere in the world A multi-currency e-wallet that allows users to exchange, spend and send money at the best possible rates.

Exuus which is situated in Rwanda aims to leverage the power of informal collective saving schemes through a digital and decentralized collective wallet for saving groups.  They created SAVE to allow both unbanked and underbanked populations to access financial services without necessarily having a bank account.

OZÉ brings African SMEs into the digital era with an app that makes it easy for businesses to track sales, expenses, and customer information.

The data is analyzed to provide tailored recommendations, reports, and business insights. If the entrepreneur needs a little extra support, an OZÉ Coach is just a click away.

PaddyCover is a Nigerian based insurance service aggregator and technology company, powering affordable pay-as-you-go insurance in Nigeria & Africa, working with established insurers and customer aggregators to offer a multi-channel platform that facilitates flexible and convenient payment.

People’s Pension Trust (Ghana) offers pension products to workers in the informal sector (farmers, market women, self- employed, taxi drivers etc. for which people can save daily, weekly or monthly, with flexible contribution amounts, done by mobile phone or other means.

SmartTeller is a digital banking platform for Financial cooperatives, bringing access to digital financial services to the unbanked and under-banked by providing cooperatives and micro-finance institutions the all-inclusive tool to provide unbanked and under-banked standard financial services.

SympliFi (UK) is a global online marketplace that enables diaspora around the world to easily access impactful financial solutions in their home country for self and family, at the touch of a button, because people want to do more than just send money back home.

uKheshe, South African is a unique digital payment acceptance platform that enables informal merchants and traders to accept card payments without the need for a bank account, smartphone or formal business registration. Using payments as the catalyst to access broader financial services such as lending and insurance.

Nasir Zubiari is CEO and co-founder of LHoFT. He is also a Non-Executive Board Director of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) S.A and sits on the IMF’s High-Level Advisory Group on Finance and Technology. Nasir has been immersed in the Fintech and startup sector for the past seven years.

The LHoFT is a new public-private sector initiative that will be dedicated to advancing Luxembourg’s ambitions in financial technology (fintech).

The LHoFT aims to foster innovation and develop solutions that shape the future of financial services.

It will connect and create value for the entire Luxembourg financial ecosystem; financial institutions, fintech startups & trailblazers, IT industry, research and academia as well as the regulatory and public authorities.

Image Credit/LHoFT