Kenya’s Finserve to tap into Africa’s e-commerce

Kenyan bank Equity Group’s fintech business Finserve is banking on a brand-new payment platform for consumers and organisations across East and Central Africa to take advantage of the region’s e-commerce and remittances markets.The new service will be available in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan-Reuters Finserve plans to work with financial providers and businesses to combine payment options in East and Central Africa on to one payment platform, accessible by means of mobile apps and online websites, Finserve managing director Jack Ngare stated.”If you are a business owner doing service in, let’s state, Tanzania and you wish to transfer to Uganda, then you can … use our platform as soon as you land in Uganda to accept payments,” he stated in an interview.Ngare stated this would mean individuals would not need to sign up for all the telecoms companies and banks services just to enable consumers to pay into their business.The brand-new service will be readily available in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.Finserve is also targeting the remittances

business, where people living outside their house country routinely send out refund. Billions of dollars yearly are sent out to Africa by the continent’s diaspora. The World Bank, for instance, estimated remittances to sub-Saharan Africa at$38 billion in 2017. Finserve is likewise partnering with an unnamed fintech company and 6 Ethiopian banks to make its remittances platform offered in the country.The government of Ethiopia opened a diaspora fund savings account last month.

It is asking Ethiopians abroad to contribute as part of efforts to help end a forex shortage.Ngare stated this was a chance for Finserve.

“Ethiopia is looking for influx of forex, so things such as cross-border remittance(platforms ), are very useful to them,”he said.Equity Group, Kenya’s biggest bank by consumer numbers, this week introduced Finserve as an independent business.

Equity Group said Finserve had been behind innovations such as Equitel, the bank’s mobile virtual network operator.Finserve has currently integrated on its platform payment companies that consist of Alipay, developed by Alibaba, Tencent’s WeChat, MasterCard and Visa.Ngare stated the company was targeting online businesses that desire to offer in East and Central Africa.”Among my customers, who does a great deal of Sino-Africa trade and he used to bring money all the method to China to acquire items, today … he is able now to press cash back and forth.”Ngare said the company has aspirations to expand beyond East and Central Africa into other African countries such as Nigeria and South Africa.