By Dipo Olowookere
Pan-African banking group, Ecobank Group, has called on fintech entrepreneurs from the continent 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 the lender’s 33 markets in Africa as well as France.
A statement issued from the bank said submissions are welcomed from all start-ups and developers in any of Africa’s 54 countries for the contest.
Intending participants will have to submit their entries at https://www.Ecobank.com/Fintechchallenge on or before April 12, 2020, while 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.
According to the statement, fellows will qualify to explore multinational product roll out, with an opportunity to pursue integration with Ecobank and potentially launch products in Ecobank’s Pan African footprint.
In addition, Ecobank may select start-ups as a pan-African service partner within the bank’s ecosystem, while they would be given access to Ecobank’s APIs to test and improve their products for the pan-African market and then get mentoring and networking support in the network of global and African partners of the group.
According to Ecobank Group Executive, Operations & Technology, Eddy Ogbogu, “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.”
Ecobank Senior Fintech Advisor, Djiba Diallo, while commenting on the initiative, stated that, “The Ecobank Fintech challenge and fellowship have been improved upon to create even additional value for Ecobank and the Fintechs. We took feedback from the past editions and one of the major innovations 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.
