Nigerian-led Fintech, Asante Selected for the 6-Month Mastercard Start Path Program

Nigerian-led Mauritius-based Fintech startup, Asante Financial Services has been selected to join Mastercard’s Start Path program.

Asante is a provider of high impact digital financial services that supports Africa’s growth through sustainable lending for underserved small businesses and individuals.

The Mastercard Start Path Program brings together a diverse network of innovators and startups and provides access to experts and infrastructure to accelerate their solutions.

This year, Asante is among the six scaling startups selected for the award-winning program. The startups include companies building blockchain-based payments solutions with the aim of humanizing finance. It also includes startups designing sustainable lending platforms to close the small business credit gap in emerging markets.

Other startups in the Program are, Cledara from the UK; Jifiti, SpenDebt’s, Tippy from the United States of America and Moeda Seeds from Uruguay.

Asante is making sustainable loans available to MSMEs since 2016

Founded in Mauritius in 2016, Asante Financial Service is a sustainable loan provider focused on Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) and consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Since its launch, the company has grown exponentially and is now operating in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania, with active plans to expand into Nigeria and Uganda.

According to the company, Asante’s aspiration is to be Africa’s leading digital financial services provider by facilitating financial independence, tapping into the best talent in the market, and harnessing the power of technology to deliver world-class lending services to valued customers.

The company is headed by a Nigerian, Chidi Okpala. He is one of the most respected retail financial services experts in Africa with more than 26 years of experience across 25 African countries.

Chidi has worked with big and notable companies like Atlas Mara, United Bank for Africa Plc and Bharti Airtel International where he founded Airtel Money Africa.

Last year the startup was among the finalists at the DIFC Fintech Hive Accelerator program.

With the company joining the Mastercard Start Path Program, it will be getting a six-month training where it will get to work closely with Mastercard. It will also have access to Mastercard’s technology, expertise and resources to rapidly scale its business.

Other perks include direct access to the company’s channels, customers and product teams as well as immersive virtual events and programming to uncover co-innovation opportunities.