Touch and Pay Announced as Winner of Ecobank Fintech Challenge, Gets $50,000
Touch and Pay, a Nigerian fintech startup, has been announced as the winner of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge, 2022 edition. This announcement was made by the Ecobank Group.
The event was personally presided over by the Minister of Digital Economy and Transformation, Republic of Togo, H.E. Cina Lawson, hosted at the Ecobank’s headquarters in Lomé where the winners were declared.
Attached to the fintech challenge is the cash prize of $50,000. This has been reported to be one of the largest cash prizes without any attachment or conditions.
The winner, Touch and Pay have a platform that processes microtransactions. With the provided tool, users can make simple payments such as pay for buses, bills and more across Africa. the startup recently revealed that it has acquired more than 2 million users across the continent, while it processes about 500,000 transactions daily.
Asides from declaring the winner of the challenge, five other finalists were inducted into the Ecobank Fintech Fellowship.
The fellowship has been uniquely designed to provide the Fintech Fellows with access to explore viable partnerships with the Bank, therefore integrating their ideas with Ecobank’s banking tools while scaling their tech ideas across Ecobank’s 33 markets across the continent.
The other five startups inducted include:
Cauri Money, Senegal
DizzitUp, Togo
MaishaPay, Democratic Republic of Congo
Moni Africa, Nigeria
Paycode, South Africa
While congratulating the finalists, Ecobank Group, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ade Ayeyemi, said “This year’s six finalists have set the bar high at this Grand Finale.”
He continued by saying, “Their innovations are revolutionising the financial payments landscape in Africa and advancing financial inclusion. It is an honour for the Ecobank Group to partner with them and jointly transform the financial landscape of our continent.”
To express his profound appreciation for the turnout of the event, He said, “profound appreciation to all our partners especially Arise, the gold sponsor of the 2022 Challenge, as well as to the Jury who worked tirelessly to evaluate the finalists and select the winner.”
Also congratulating the winners, likewise, the finalists, Arise’s CEO, Gavin Tipper, said, “Arise extends its congratulations to the finalists and the winner for the creativity and innovation they displayed.” His facility was a gold sponsor of the event and also a co-sponsor of the event.
He continued by saying “The Ecobank Fintech Challenge has become an important platform for supporting fintech innovators and encouraging bold solutions to advancing financial inclusion in Africa.
The talent on offer in this year’s pool of finalists once again exceeded expectations, and we look forward to seeing how the different products transform financial services on the continent.”
Expressing excitement and fulfilment by winning the challenge, Touch and Pay’s CEO, Oluwole Michael, said, “We at Touch and Pay (TAP) are excited about the opportunity given to us to work with Ecobank, a pan-African bank operating across Africa.
This plugs into our vision of helping 250m Africans process cash-based transactions digitally making them truly cashless and providing true credit facilities for merchants, retailers, and customers.”