The 2019 Global Fintech Hackcelerator @ Southern Africa competition has named uKheshe, South Africa’s cheapest and most convenient QR cash card and microtransaction platform, and Mindbridge, which automates the ingestion and analysis of data, and learns from user interaction to identify fraud, as winners of its 2019 competition in South Africa.
The Global Fintech Hackcelerator was launched by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and powered by fintech/bank matchmaking platform, KPMG Matchi, creates a platform for firms to demonstrate their innovative solutions to complex financial challenges in the Southern African region.
The competition gave fintech firms from all over the world an opportunity to submit an application in response to problem statements constructed by the SARB in collaboration with other local and international industry experts.
The regional hackcelerator received 95 entries from interested fintech firms located across the globe. All responding firms were validated by KPMG Matchi and scored by a team of 24 industry executives from the following organisations: Absa, Capitec, Discovery, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), FirstRand Group, Investec, Liberty Group, National Treasury, Nedbank, SARB, Standard Bank and the Technology Innovation Agency.
The top 12 innovative and sustainable fintech solutions were announced in early October and today the respondents showcased their solutions at the Fintech Demo Day. A panel of judges from the SARB, FSCA, KPMG Singapore as well as local financial industry experts formed a team that selected the two winning solutions.
Ukheshe empowers informal merchants, traders, street vendors and casual labourers to accept real-time digital payments from cardholders or different payment apps, without needing to have a bank account.
MindBridge Analytics’ AI Auditor platform automates the ingestion and analysis of data, and learns from user interaction to identify fraud. Leveraging machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing, 100% of transactions are reviewed, and results are easily searchable.
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Ukheshe & Mindbridge beat 10 other shortlisted startups at the Global Fintech Hackcelerator @ Southern Africa including:
1. Ctrl
Ctrl is an independent car and household insurance advice app, where individuals can receive and accept quote options from a variety of insurers on their mobile phones.
2. e4 Strategic (Pty) Ltd
Virtual Identity, a business app released by e4, is a web/mobile service where the client can complete the FICA process remotely by submitting evidence of identity, which is verified against external data sources and/ or an agent, fulfilling all regulatory obligations. Its RealRes solution confirms proof of residence through data verification and matching, geolocation verification and matching, and image and optical character recognition processing.
3. Emerge Analytics
Emerge Analytics is an advanced data analytics solution that helps clients navigate and optimise corporate data to deliver better answers, new insight and improved profitability.
4. Hydrogen
Hydrogen accelerates digital financial innovation by enabling organisations to build unique solutions and products – across savings, investment, wellness and insurance – by configuring the relevant combination of application programming interfaces and business logic.
5. Nimbla
Nimbla’s digital insurance platform is designed to protect small- and medium-sized businesses against insolvent customers by insuring invoices against non-payment.
7. Paycode
Paycode provides financial service access to the unbanked by giving them a biometric identity. Through its technology, Paycode provides solutions that enable, among other things, a national payments infrastructure, social grant distribution, international remittances, card payment infrastructure, and token management systems.
8. Sedicii
Sedicii monitors customer bank remittances for anti-money laundering through multi-party collaboration without sharing data, while remaining fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other regulations.
9. Strands
Strands’ digital banking solution helps small- and medium-sized enterprises to better run their business while helping banks to better understand and serve their business customers through smarter lending.
10. Tautona AI
The Tautona AI platform automates decisions with artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, business rules and analytics to help insurance companies identify which claims can be automatically processed and which should be handled manually.
11. Wealth Migrate
Wealth Migrate drives financial inclusion through a blockchain enabled, global online real estate marketplace that allows people to invest and diversify in global real estate for as little as US$1 000.
The 12 startups pitched at the Fintech Demo Day on 29 October 2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa and the two winners will receive a stipend towards travel expenses to attend the 2019 Singapore Fintech Festival; pitch at the Hackcelerator Demo Day at the 2019 Singapore Fintech Festival and receive funding to develop a contextualised proof of concept, to be deployed within a year from the Demo Day; and work with high-value corporates to contextualise a solution to their needs, while obtaining market entry into the Singapore and Asia-Pacific region.
The top three winners at the Singapore Fintech Festival will each receive a cash prize.
