The top 12 innovative and sustainable FinTech solutions have been shortlisted for the Global Fintech Hackcelerator Southern Africa.
The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) will host a Fintech Demo Day on 29 October 2019 to select the two winning solutions.
In August 2019 the SARB joined forces with KPMG Matchi to run the 2019 Global FinTech Hackcelerator Southern Africa, an acceleration programme that creates a platform for FinTech firms to demonstrate their innovative solutions to complex financial challenges in the Southern African region.
FinTech firms from all over the world were invited to submit an application in response to problem statements constructed in collaboration with the SARB.
The regional hackcelerator received 95 entries from interested FinTech firms located across the globe. All responding firms were validated by KPMG Matchi’s analysts and scored by a team of 24 industry executives from the following organisations: Absa, Capitec, Discovery, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), FirstRand Group, Investec, Liberty Group, National Treasury, Nedbank, SARB, Standard Bank, and the Technology Innovation Agency.
The top 12 shortlisted solutions in the Global FinTech Hackcelerator Southern Africa are (in alphabetical order):
- Ctrl
Ctrl is an independent car and household insurance advice app, where individuals can receive and accept quote options from a variety of insurers on their mobile phones. - e4 Strategic (Pty) Ltd
Virtual Identity, a business app released by e4, is a web/mobile service where the client can complete the FICA process remotely by submitting evidence of identity, which is verified against external data sources and/ or an agent, fulfilling all regulatory obligations. Its RealRes solution confirms proof of residence through data verification and matching, geolocation verification and matching, and image and optical character recognition processing. - Emerge Analytics
Emerge Analytics is an advanced data analytics solution that helps clients navigate and optimise corporate data to deliver better answers, new insight and improved profitability. - Hydrogen
Hydrogen accelerates digital financial innovation by enabling organisations to build unique solutions and products – across savings, investment, wellness and insurance – by configuring the relevant combination of application programming interfaces and business logic. - MindBridge Analytics Inc.
MindBridge Analytics’ AI Auditor platform automates the ingestion and analysis of data, and learns from user interaction to identify fraud. Leveraging machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing, 100% of transactions are reviewed, and results are easily searchable. - Nimbla
Nimbla’s digital insurance platform is designed to protect small- and medium-sized businesses against insolvent customers by insuring invoices against non-payment. - Paycode
Paycode provides financial service access to the unbanked by giving them a biometric identity. Through its technology, Paycode provides solutions that enable, among other things, a national payments infrastructure, social grant distribution, international remittances, card payment infrastructure, and token management systems. - Sedicii
Sedicii monitors customer bank remittances for anti-money laundering through multi-party collaboration without sharing data, while remaining fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other regulations. - Strands
Strands’ digital banking solution helps small- and medium-sized enterprises to better run their business while helping banks to better understand and serve their business customers through smarter lending. - Tautona AI
The Tautona AI platform automates decisions with artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, business rules and analytics to help insurance companies identify which claims can be automatically processed and which should be handled manually. - Ukheshe
Ukheshe empowers informal merchants, traders, street vendors and casual labourers to accept real-time digital payments from cardholders or different payment apps, without needing to have a bank account. - Wealth Migrate
Wealth Migrate drives financial inclusion through a blockchain enabled, global online real estate marketplace that allows people to invest and diversify in global real estate for as little as US$1 000.
The 12 shortlisted respondents will showcase their solutions at the Fintech Demo Day on 29 October 2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The event seeks to explore sustainable financial services innovations that must address real-world financial services challenges.
A panel of judges from the SARB, FSCA, as well as local and Asian industry experts, will select and announce two winning solutions.
Each Global Fintech Hackcelerator Southern Africa 2019 winner will:
- receive a stipend towards travel expenses to attend the 2019 Singapore Fintech Festival;
- get an opportunity to pitch their solution live during the Hackcelerator Demo Day at the 2019 Singapore Fintech Festival and engage with industry experts;
- receive funding to develop a contextualised proof of concept, to be deployed within a year from the Demo Day; and
- work with high-value corporates to contextualise a solution to their needs, while obtaining market entry into the Singapore and Asia-Pacific region.
Over and above the Global Fintech Hackcelerator Southern Africa gains, the top three winners at the Singapore FinTech Festival will each receive a cash prize.
