How to facilitate business with Africa ?

How to facilitate business with Africa ?

On October 19^th, InFiNe.lu members learned more about BitPesa project to facilitate businesses from and to Africa thanks to a presentation by David Yen, Bitpesa Head of Global Strategic Partnerships. BitPesa is a Fintech startup licensed by the UK’s FCA and the Luxembourg CSSF. It is hosted at the House of Fintech in Luxembourg.

In the field of inclusive finance, Accion – Center for Financial Inclusion defines FinTech as “the use of software and digital platforms to deliver financial services to consumer.”[1] Thanks to the technology, new means of providing financial services and products are developed making them more accessible and more affordable.

In the presentation, David Yen underlined that a lot of hard currencies flow into Africa and over than 50 African currencies circulate. Almost 50% of cross-border flows use USD clearing and it costs on average 9.8% to send money in Africa.

The solution proposed by BitPesa is to make a direct market between frontier markets (holding local currencies) and to use a network of digital brokers to create a global settlement to replace the need for USD.

During its presentation, David Yen mentioned the challenges of developing a Fintech startup and the importance of setting up appropriate regulations to make sure fintech solutions are adapted to the local environment and to ensure the customer protection. In the world of Fintech, collaboration with different actors, such as the regulators and the banks, is essential.

[1] https://www.accion.org/fintech

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