Nabilah Safira
TechInAfrica – Two competing fintech firms have come up as the winner of the 2019 Global Fintech Hackcelerator @ Southern Africa competition. The event, which was a result of SARB (South African Reserve Bank) and KPMG Matchi’s partnership in August, had its winners announced by SARB yesterday.
MindBridge Analytics and uKheshe had to compete with other 93 fintech firms across the globe to solve the challenges provided by SARB’s collaboration with industry experts from overseas and the locals. The attractive solutions should be ones that address the real-world financial services’ challenges while offering it innovatively and sustainably.
A team of 24 executives from Absa, Capitec, Discovery, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), First Rand Group, Investec, Liberty Group, National Treasury, Nedbank, SARB, Standard Bank and the Technology Innovation Agency, with validation from KPMG Matchi, determined the promising fintech. What remained were the top 12 finalists announced in early October, and yesterday, their showcased solutions were scored by a panel of judges from the SARB, FSCA, KPMG Singapore, and the local experts, before the two fintech firms were selected as the winners.
For uKheshe, their utmosts focus is in that of continental expansion. The real-time digital payments app has also partnered with Masterpass to accept cross-link payment platforms, such as banking apps. They want to normalize the culture of digital payments, and for them, winning the competition had given the needed acknowledgment from the banks and the regulators, as well as playing a significant role in their expansion plans, co-founder Jason Penton admitted.
Solon Angel (founder) of MindBridge Analytics was quite anxious about the fierce atmosphere of the competition. But he couldn’t resist the growth opportunities offered by Hackcelerator. Helming the Canada-based platform, his firm has been recognized as the world’s first AI platform to catch a convict of financial statement fraud.
As winners, both uKheshe and Mindbridge Analytics will compete for a $200,000 prize on the 2019 Singapore Fintech Festival. This will be their opportunity to break into the Asian fintech market as they’re tasked with developing a contextualized proof of concept in the competition held from 11 November to 13 November.
Source: Itweb.co.za
