- Founded by Barry Levett, SmartPesa is a specialist payments technology provider that aims to solve the last mile problem for financial institutions in emerging markets.
Over 2 billion people are currently excluded from the financial system (the unbanked and underbanked). SmartPesa’s vision is to enable countries to quickly expand the financial services network into rural areas at very low cost, bringing the under-served into the modern financial system.
SmartPesa was founded in Singapore in order to tap into its growing financial technology expertise and as a base to expand into our target markets in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and South America.
Banks, Insurers and PSPs can use SmartPesa’s platform as mini-ATMs/branches in remote and rural areas, providing a full range of services including payments, cash-in and out, balance inquiries, bill payments, transfers, government distributions, loans and insurance. SmartPesa directly addresses the dual needs of financial inclusion and cash reduction whilst eliminating the need for costly/risky changes to banks’ proven systems.
SmartPesa is deployed on-premises with full legal/regulatory compliance and industry leading security systems and fully integrates with any financial switch.
SmartPesa works closely with local partners across the globe to operate the solution for local financial institutions, initially as a mobile point of sale solution and later expand into a multi-service system as part of the mission to solve the Banking Last Mile problem.
This is fairly similarly to Mpesa whose thousands of agents throughout Kenya operate the small roadside shops where you can cash out your M-Pesa digital currency. These roadside shops are abundant in emerging markets and are the key to economic growth in these countries. They do everything via mobile phones and via cash. That is why a venture like SmartPesa that aims to bring these roadside stands into the credit economy may create a significant opportunity for many throughout the globe.