
Cape Town, the laboratory of futur emerging countries
Let’s dip in the Fintech scene

South Africa, the new eldorado of the continent
South Africa has favorable demographic trends, rising urbanization, a growing consumer class and the youngest population in the world. Reverse Brain Drain brings know-how and valuable connections with successful companies abroad.
Proliferation of mobile telecommunications: Africa’s mobilephone penetration has now reached 90%, and about 50% for smartphones.
The continent has benefitted from technological advances: Africa leapt overt he PC era and has landed directly in the mobile revolution. Some countries have had the opportunity to skip the EDGE/3Gto move directly to 4G.
Cape Town is the digital capital of Africa: Amazon.com has launched a software development centre in Cape Town.Cape Town is home to Naspers HQ,one of the world’s largest mullti-mediacompanies with U$60 billion market capitalisation (#857 on Forbes’ Global 2000). IBM has opened IBM African Innovation Centre in Cape Town and also a telecommunication development centre.
BandwidthBarn, a leading ICT business indicator based in Cape Town, helps create successful global businesses from the region’s science, technology, design and social innovation. Hundreds of startups!
The Fintech scene
The South African ecosystem is interesting because the financial services needs are considerable and many do not have access to the traditional banking system. As a result, there are innovations that are meant to be total alternatives to the traditional banking system. Next generation banking is taking over !
The main themes there are: payments, lending, blockchain, insurance, international transfers.
Many actors worth the meeting :
Capitec, the 5th largest South African bank, with a strong focus on mass market and best bank in the world for 2 years.
Rainfin is a marketplace that lends to companies and institutions. RainFin allows small and medium-sized businesses to have loans from a community of lenders. Analytical tools allow lenders to make informed investments and secure transactions.
Lulalend is a microcredit platform for small businesses. By simplifying the process and the legibility of the offer Lulalend gives access to funding for any type of business.
Snap scan allows to pay with its smartphone by flashing a QR Code. The device is widely used in restaurants especially allowing guests not to wait to leave the establishment. It also allows unbanked merchants to receive payments on the account of a relative, an sms being sent to the merchant for each transaction made to its dedicated QR Code.
Wigroup is a provider of mobile payment solutions with 2 main offers; “WiCode”, an integrated, open and interoperable point-of-sale, a mobile transaction platform, and “wiBlox”, a suite of services that link mobile applications to rewards, vouchers, coupons, and analytical functions.
Rise is the startup accelerator of the Barclays. Rise is an international network dedicated to the fintech of which Cape Town is the flagship of the African continent. Accelerator hosts 10 startups
For a 13-week program. The last promotion consisted of Several successes such as Asoriba, Beyonic, SimbaPay or WizzPass….-
Yethu is the low level of banking of the popular classes and the culture of shared savings favors the emergence of safe savings services. Yethu secures and logs each transaction related to a shared savings, the service then allows to certify the solvency of unbanked individuals and thus allow them access to borrowing and social services.
If you want to go deeper , you can join our Learning expedition in Cape town , during the biggest tech event , Africarena, 3–10 November 2017
Contact : lea@theschoolab.com

