The Ecobank Fintech Challenge identifies and partners Fintechs that are ready to scale and provides them with support and access to Ecobank’s 33 African markets so they can grow to become true Pan African Fintech success stories.
The selected finalists participate in the Ecobank Fintech Innovation Fair, with the top 3 finalists winning cash prizes. All finalists are inducted into the Ecobank Fintech Fellowship, which affords them the opportunity to explore deals, integration and commercial partnership with the Ecobank Group.
Eligibility Criteria
- Open to all Fintechs on the African continent.
- Ecobank is looking for products that offer solutions and innovations in the following areas:
- Digital customer onboarding (consumers, SME/Merchant, Investment Banking)
- Improve customer experience at branches
- Improve customer experience online
- Digitization of the customer journey
Ecobank Fintech Challenge Benefits.
Become a finalist; get inducted as an Ecobank Fintech Fellow and stand a chance to explore the following opportunities:
- Fellows will be given access to Ecobank’s APIs to test and improve their products for the pan-African market.
- Founders will be inducted as Ecobank Fintech Fellows, granting them access to networking and mentoring opportunities within the Ecobank Group and its vast network of global and African partners.
- Once in a lifetime opportunity to pursue integration with Ecobank and potentially launch products in Ecobank’s over 30 markets across Africa.
- The top three winners at the Challenge will be awarded $10,000, $7000, and $5000 cash prizes respectively.
- Start-ups may be selected by Ecobank as local country-level partner in any of Ecobank’s 33 country ecosystem.
- The Challenge offers opportunities for Fintechs to potentially integrate with Ecobank’s existing digital offerings. The existing digital offerings include Ecobank Omni, Ecobank electronic financial supply chain(eFSC), Ecobank Xpress, Ecobank Mobile APP or USSD, MasterPass™ QR, mVISA™ & mCash, etc. They’d like applicants to pitch how their solutions can add value to these existing Ecobank digital offerings.
Method of Application
What kinds of solutions can I submit?
Teams are to submit applications addressing one or more of the following challenges
Customer experience
-  Digital customer onboarding (consumers, SME/Merchant, Investment Banking)
-  improve customer experience at branches
Credit Scoring
-  360° view on customers and prospects of financial activities
-  Digital Lending for SMEs
Ecosystem aggregation
-  SME/Merchants onboarding on payment integration
-  Niche merchant aggregation
-  Provide easy access to non-smart phone users
Internal tools
-  Digital solution to improve performance of sales force
-  Agency banking: solutions that enable agents to offer more services
Payments
-  Offline Mobile to Mobile payments (Dead Zones)
Any other relevant product categories
