The Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT) Foundation has announced the selection of 10 African fintech startups to join CATAPULT: Inclusion Africa: Special Edition in Dubai.
CATAPULT: Inclusion Africa (CATAPULT) is a platform that aims to create impact through financial inclusion. CATAPULT seeks to provide participants with education, support and networking opportunities by leveraging established entrepreneurs and finance professionals from Luxembourg.
The special edition of CATAPULT will be held in Dubai and is sponsored by Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, with support from the Alliance of Financial Inclusion and organizations including ADA, AFI, InFine, DIFC FinTech Hive, PwC, Luxembourg Microfinance and Development Fund, Luxembourg For Finance, Dubai UAE Expo 2020 and Compellio.
“We are excited to deliver our Catapult program in Dubai, working with incredible local partners such as the DIFC and Fintech Hive as well as our key Luxembourg sponsor, The Directorate for Development and Humanitarian Aid. We have an incredible lineup of participants picked from over 130 applications, and we look forward to working with them and learning about their businesses. This is a great demonstration of international collaboration between the UAE and Luxembourg, and we believe all mentors and stakeholders involved will benefit from the ecosystems coming together through the Catapult program,” said Nasir Zubairi, CEO of the LHoFT.
Speakers from Luxembourg and the UAE will give talks on developing businesses, creating synergies and achieving inclusion goals and the selected startups will benefit from networking opportunities with the event’s partners, sponsors, investors, microfinance institutions and public financial institutions (PFIs).
The African startups are Ghana’s Motito, a “buy now, pay later” platform which provides interest-free credit at point-of-sale; Akiba Digital from South Africa, an alternative scoring platform that powers credit for small businesses; and Damansah, from the Ivory Coast, which is creating an alternative credit scoring system that connects credit providers to small businesses.
Three of the startups hail from Nigeria. Social Lender, seeks to assist financial institutions in offering their services based on the social reputation to individuals who are underbanked. MamaMoni provides micro-loans to low-income female entrepreneurs, and Halal Payment is an all-inclusive digital payments platform leveraging the Islamic banking system to provide shariah-based financing for SMEs.
Two more are from Zimbabwe: eAgro uses data analytics and machine learning to create low-cost financial credit products designed to support the unbanked and underserved farmers. VIRL Rural & Social Financial Services provides loans to smallholder farmers and micro and small enterprises.
Another two are Ugandan, namely eMaisha Pay, a mobile platform that leverages machine learning, alternative data and psychometric parameters to credit score SMEs; and International Airtime Top Up, which offers airtime, money transfers and cash pick-up solutions to and from African corridors.
The event will run from today until March 23.