MetLife Foundation and digital payments giant Visa together with global nonprofit Accion and World Bank Group member IFC, have announced the winners of the Inclusive Fintech 50. Nigeria’s financial management app, Riby and agency banking platform, E-Settlement, are part of the 16 startups from Africa to make the list.
The Inclusive Fintech 50 is a list of early-stage fintech startups that contribute to financial inclusion around the world. This list helps investors to identify “high-potential” companies. In turn, this helps those companies attract the capital and knowledge they need to scale their businesses for “maximum social impact” to benefit the world’s 3 billion financially underserved people.
Categorized into 5 sectors of fintech – Credit, Insurance, Payments and Remittances, Savings and Personal Financial Management and Infrastructure, 50 startups made the list and were selected from 400 eligible applicants. They lucky 50 are noted for using financial technology to expand access, usage, and quality of financial services in advanced and emerging markets.
About 30% of the startups are credit providers to underserved segments including MSMEs, 25% offer infrastructure solutions like biometrics software that enable financial institutions to expand access to previously excluded groups – Riby and E-Settlements were selected here.
Startups offering insurance, payments and remittances services, and savings and personal financial management tools made up about 15% respectively.
70% of those that made the final 50 are pre-Series A startups and already exhibit strong product-market fit and traction, with a combined 8 million customer base.
Also, fintechs focused on sub-Saharan Africa account for 16 – a third of the 50 startups selected. They include; E-Settlement (infrastructure), Riby (Infrastructure) from Nigeria; ACRE Africa (insurance), Apollo Agriculture (credit), Kwara (infrastructure), Pezesha (credit), Pula (insurance), and Tulaa (credit) from Kenya; OZÉ (infrastructure) and People’s Pension Trust (savings & personal financial management) from Ghana; PEG Africa (credit) from Mauritius.
Others include – awamo (infrastructure) with operations in Kenya and Uganda; Hello Paisa (payments & remittances), and Inclusivity Solutions (insurance) from South Africa; MaTontine (infrastructure) from Senegal; and Numida (infrastructure) from Uganda.
With the majority of the startup from Sub-Sahara Africa, it goes on to show that the region is the most favoured for top fintech companies aimed at improving financial inclusion to operate in.
Other startups operating in South Asia makes up 20% of the list. 8% each operate in North America and East Asia and the Pacific, while the remainder are those from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
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