Tech in Africa
PayDunya is out on an impressive mission to become the “PayPal of Africa” by offering simple and reliable digital payments thus accelerating the digitization of businesses across Africa. PayDunya offers companies and small businesses an opportunity to sell, issue, or receive payments.
M-Payments are predominantly in English speaking African countries, prompting the Senegalese fintech to seize the opportunity to provide the service to francophone Africa. Running on the principle of inclusiveness and security, PayDunya offers the new service to the under-banked in the local ecosystem.
Despite the continent’s booming e-commerce sector, there are still many challenges when it comes to payments. Intra-continental hurdles exist given the different currencies in Africa. PayDunya aims to ease money transfers, mobile payments, interest payments, and access to digital currencies for small businesses.
PayDunya startup was launched in 2015 and stands out as a model of diversity and pa-African co-operation in solving the continent’s complex challenges. The co-founders are Youma Fall from Senegal, Christian Palouki from Togo, Honoré Hounwanou from the Ivory Coast, and Aziz Yerima from Benin.
PayDunya is currently present in Benin, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and soon to be Mali and Burkina Faso. The present health pandemic has slowed PayDunya’s expansion but the company has a medium-term goal of operating in 20 countries – including the anglophone countries.
In a feature on Born2Invest, the startup pointed out some of the challenges it has faced throughout its journey such as human resource shortfalls in the fintech sector. However, they currently boast over 600 active client companies and are averaging 50,000 transactions a day in 2020. Their workforce is made up of 54 employees spanning from 10 multi-ethnic nationalities. PayDunya recorded a turnover of $2.96 million in 2019.
