Association Burkinabè de Fundraising

Ecobank Fintech Challenge 2022 in Africa

The Ecobank Fintech Challenge is open to all Fintechs on the African continent. Interested Fintechs can apply by sending details of their product and a demo.

Ecobank Fintech Challenge is a pan-African innovation competition and business partnership offering from Ecobank. It is designed to inspire, support and engage African Fintechs, with the aim of expanding the reach of innovative Fintech and banking-related products.

The Ecobank Fintech Challenge identifies and matches fintechs ready to scale and provides them with support and access to opportunities in Ecobank's 33 African markets. The objective? To contribute to their growth as potential pan-African fintech success stories.

The Challenge offers Fintechs the opportunity to potentially integrate with Ecobank's existing digital offerings. Existing digital offerings include Ecobank Omni, Ecobank electronic financial supply chain (eFSC), Ecobank Xpress, Ecobank Mobile APP or USSD, MasterPass™ QR, mVISA™ & mCash, etc. You can read more about these platforms HERE. They would like candidates to present how your solutions can add value to these Existing Ecobank digital offerings.

Ecobank will be happy to learn how you can help them solve the problems around:

• Mobile to mobile offline payments (dead zones)
• Increase the size of the payment portfolio in the African context.

What kind of solutions are they looking for?

Teams must submit applications that address one or more of the following challenges

• Customer experience
  • Improving the customer experience online and in the branch
  • Digital solutions using analytics/customer information and AI to deliver tailored advertising
  • Acceleration of the resolution process
  • Digitalisation of the customer journey
• Credit rating
  • Digital integration of customers (consumers, SMEs/retailers, investment banking)
  • Increase the size of the payment portfolio across their network
• Aggregation of ecosystems
  • Integration of SMEs/merchants in payment integration
  • Aggregation of niche traders
  • Provide easy access to non-smartphone users
• Financial inclusion
  • Digital integration of customers (consumers, SMEs/retailers, investment banking)
  • Increase the size of the payment portfolio across their network Ecosystem aggregation
• Aggregation of ecosystems
  • SME/trader integration and payment integration
  • Aggregation of niche merchants through tailor-made solutions per sector
  • Seamless access to Ecobank services for non-smartphone users
  • Facilitate mobile collections with merchants that allow synchronization and consolidation with their Xpress point system
• Internal tools
  • Digital solutions that improve the performance of the sales force
  • Branch banking solutions that expand their range of services
• Payments
  • Mobile to mobile offline payments (dead zones)
  • Increasing the size of the payment portfolio in the African context

or any other relevant product category.

Benefits

• Deployment of multinational products :
  • A unique opportunity to further integrate with Ecobank and potentially launch products in Ecobank's 30+ markets across Africa.
• Silver competition prize :
  • The final winner will receive a cash prize of 50,000 $.
• Partnerships with service providers :
  • Start-ups can be selected by Ecobank as a local partner at the national level in one of Ecobank's 33 national ecosystems.
• Access to Ecobank's pan-African banking sandbox :
  • Fellows will have access to a dedicated team to support the testing of Ecobank's APIs to enable them to improve their products for the pan-African market.
• Mentoring and networking support :
  • Founders will be inducted as Ecobank Fintech Fellows, giving them access and connections to a vast network of global and African accelerators and potential investors, referrals to Ecobank's ecosystem of non-bank customers for potential partnerships, as well as mentors.
• Integration with existing Ecobank digital offerings:
  • The Challenge offers Fintechs the opportunity to potentially integrate with Ecobank's existing digital offerings.

Eligibility criteria

• All fintechs with a product focused on or relevant to Africa are eligible to apply to the fintech challenge.

For more information, please visit Ecobank Fintech.