Grace Ashiru
eFinance Group, a state-owned provider of digital payment solutions, has invested $5 million in Nexta, an Egyptian company that plans to launch its banking app in the coming months.
This news comes after Nexta said in March that it had raised $2 million in a pre-seed round led by an Egyptian early-stage VC firm, Disruptech.
Before getting full permission from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) for the agent banking license, it needs to start doing business in the country. Nexta got a provisional license from the CBE in 2021 and will work to meet other conditions and do certain things.
Even though it will run its cards and technology, the Nexta app will have a partner bank that will handle payments and act as a go-between for it and the CBE.
Nexta is a company that Ahmed Hisham started in 2021. Its “next-generation banking” app and card are meant to shake up the Egyptian fintech industry.
The business says that the Nexta card will combine the customers’ current payment cards, making it easier to send money and giving them options like tracking their spending.
The co-founder and CEO said that the business is trying to make next-generation banking and give customers a good user experience.
Nexta intends to generate revenue from interchange fees and wants to provide easy and quick onboarding, card aggregation, linking all of your cards, and a variety of cash-in features.
With its soft launch, Nexta will start by focusing on budgeting and keeping track of spending.
Then, it will add new features every month or every three months to answer the Egyptians’ questions.
Nexta has limited enrollment on its waitlist to website signups to build anticipation for its launch. Hisham refused to say how many people were waiting in line for the business.
Ibrahim Sarhan, the chairman and CEO of eFinance, said in a press release that the investment in Nexta aligns with Egypt’s strategy and goal for its digital transformation by 2030. This includes the Group’s plan to optimize its assets and investments by investing in the fintech sector.
According to Sahar, the Group has supported several potential enterprises as part of various targeted investments, and Nexta is one of those businesses.
It’s important to remember that the Group helped create Nclude, a fund that invests in new fintech companies. This will help the industry’s growth in Egypt both now and in the future.
Techbuld’s Take
The Middle East is going through a massive wave of digital change, and Egypt’s financial sector shows a strong desire to change and adapt.
Egypt’s emerging fintech environment has been expanding at an impressive rate recently, with notable growth in the number of firms in the sector, a noticeable boost in venture capital (VC) investments, and increasing worldwide growth.
Egypt is one of the African markets with the highest customer spending. Furthermore, because it is one of the region’s cash-heavy markets, there is a massive opportunity for fintech to drive customer spending online by introducing card services.
Egyptians looking for new alternatives to telco-powered mobile wallets and old bank digital channels could try Nexta and Telda, two fintech companies backed by Sequoia that just announced a $20 million seed round.
As a result of the investment, the fintech banking industry is flourishing and gaining momentum.
This demonstrates how, as a result of the acquisition, the fintech banking industry is flourishing and gaining momentum.
Additionally, as new companies are likely to enter the market, the number of fintech banks in the nation will probably increase in the years to come.
