AFRICA – Ecobank Group, the pan-African banking group, is inviting African fintech entrepreneurs to enter the 3rd edition of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge.
The Fintech Challenge gives African start-ups the opportunity to promote their fintech solutions, and potentially partner with Ecobank to roll-out their solutions across Ecobank’s 33 markets in Africa as well as France.
All Finalists will be inducted as Ecobank Fintech Fellows, participate in a business boot camp followed by an Awards and Innovation Fair at the headquarters of the Ecobank Goup in Lomé, Togo in June 2020.
Ecobank Group Executive, Operations & Technology, Eddy Ogbogu noted that “As a banking group we continue to be amazed at the many ways in which fintechs are transforming banking across Africa. We look forward to the new innovations and partnership opportunities that will come with the 2020 edition.”
Fellows will qualify to explore the following opportunities including:
Multinational product roll out: an opportunity to pursue integration with Ecobank and potentially launch products in Ecobank’s Pan African footprint
Service provider partnerships. Ecobank may select start-ups as a pan-African service partner within the bank’s ecosystem.
Access to Ecobank’s Pan-African Banking Sandbox: Fellows will be given access to Ecobank’s APIs to test and improve their products for the pan-African market.
Mentoring and networking support in the network of global and African partners of the Group.
“The Ecobank Fintech challenge and fellowship have been improved upon to create even additional value for Ecobank and the Fintechs,” Ecobank Senior Fintech Advisor, Djiba Diallo said.
“We took feedback from the past editions and one of the major innovation this year is the opportunity for shortlisted Fintech’s to access our APIs through our Pan African Sandbox.”
Ecobank Fintech Challenge was designed in partnership with the advisory firm Konfidants and is supported by several partners across Africa and globally. Applications for the competition will close on 12th of April 2020.
Tanzania’s Nala, South Africa’s Virtual Identity and Nigeria’s Wallet.ng won the 2018 edition of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge. In 2017, all the winners were from the Nigerian fintech space out of the 20 finalists.
Nigeria’s IroFit emerged overall winner, while Kudi and Paylater made the second and third positions respectively.