Ecobank offers $50,000 prize money in 5th fintech challenge

By Chisom Nwatu

The pan-African banking group, Ecobank Group, has launched the fifth edition of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge and has encouraged African fintech entrepreneurs to enter the competition.

Applications for the challenge, which offers early stage and mature start-ups the potential to partner with Ecobank across 33 African countries, are open until 16 September at  https://bit.ly/3KnrDz2.

The Fintech Challenge is open to fintech companies and developers originating from any of Africa’s 54 countries, as well as global Africa-centred fintechs.

The bank said fintechs that are aligned with its “strategic objectives” stand a chance to win an overall cash prize of US$50,000 for the top winner and the opportunity to partner and scale their solutions across Ecobank’s 33 African markets.

Ten finalists will be inducted into the Ecobank Fintech Fellowship after the finals and awards ceremony which will take place in October 2022.

All fellows will also qualify to explore opportunities with the bank and its partners that include multinational products roll out: an opportunity to pursue integration with Ecobank and potentially launch products in all or part of Ecobank’s pan-African 33-country ecosystem; service provider partnerships: Ecobank may select some fintechs as pan-African service partners within the bank’s ecosystem; access to Ecobank’s Pan-African Banking Sandbox: fellows will be given access to Ecobank’s APIs to test and improve their products for the pan-African market; and priority access to Ecobank’s Venture Capital partners for funding exploration.

“Ecobank believes that the only way to transform financial services in Africa is for pan-African banks like Ecobank to continually support and collaborate with innovative Fintechs and start-ups,” said Ade Ayeyemi, CEO, Ecobank Group. “We invite and welcome Africa’s best fintechs to work with us through the 2022 Challenge.”

Tomisin Fashina, operations and technology executive, Ecobank Group said the uniqueness of the Challenge is that it welcomes both early stage and mature start-up fintechs alike and seeks to align them with different kinds of partnership opportunities within Ecobank that match their differing levels of maturity.