Visa's Everywhere Initiative came to a close on Tuesday in Johannesburg, South Africa. Nigerian startups CredPal and Growsel and Kenya's Mookh Africa fended off competition from the nine other contestants to come out victorious.
The Sub-Saharan Africa edition of the Visa Everywhere Initiative challenged local fintech startups to deliver solutions around three real-life business challenges:
CredPal won the “Merchant Payments” challenge and $25,000 for its solution that allows business and individuals to pay for purchases in instalments across online and offline merchants by providing them with instant access to credit at the point of checkout.
Growsel, the other winning Nigerian startup, won in the “Financial Inclusion” challenge, having developed a solution that connects under-financed smallholder farmers with investors via mobile phone-based Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending and marketplace sales, as well as giving them access to best agricultural practices.
This edition of Visa’s Everywhere Initiative is the first time that startups have been given a challenge specific to financial inclusion since it was launched in 2015. Growsel was awarded $25,000 for winning this category.
The Kenyan-based startup, Mookh Africa, won both the “Social Business Payments” challenge as well as the overall prize for its idea, taking home $50,000 and the opportunity to work with Visa to develop the concept further.
Visa’s Everywhere Initiative is a global innovation programme that tasks startups to solve commerce challenges of tomorrow, further enhance their own product propositions and provide visionary solutions for Visa’s vast network of partners.
Voguepay and Loystar were the other Nigerian representative at the Sub-Saharan edition challenge.
