Doors open for Tanzanian fintech startups

Dar Salaam. Doors are now open for Tanzania fintech startups to pitch their solutions to solve future payment and commerce challenges as the 2023 edition of the global innovation competition gets underway.

Dubbed the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI), the competition winners will go home with monetary prizes and gain access and exposure to Visa’s networks of partners in the banking, merchant, venture capital, and government sectors.

The Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) finals will be livestreamed on July 27 on TechCrunch – an online publisher focused on the tech industry and the startup ecosystem, Visa said in a statement yesterday.

The startup that wins at the CEMEA Regionals will participate in the global finale, which will be held on September 19 in San Francisco.

This year’s edition of CEMEA is set to introduce for the first time an award in the risk and security domain: the Fintechs Innovating in Risk Excellence, or ‘FIIRE’, Award, which will involve global fintech players across fraud management, cybersecurity, and credit risk, among others.

Following a joint review by Visa and Emirates NBD representatives, the winning fintech will receive a $25,000 prize and an opportunity to work with Emirates NBD, a leading bank in the region.

“The Visa Everywhere Initiative is a platform that empowers fintechs and entrepreneurs to showcase the most ground-breaking, impactful solutions in the world of payments and commerce,” said Salma Ingabire, Visa’s country manager for Tanzania.

“Through their technology-driven, innovative solutions, fintechs have the potential to offer broad social benefits to the markets they operate in—particularly when it comes to providing financial services to those who have traditionally been underserved. At Visa, we believe access to the digital economy drives equitable, inclusive growth, and VEI is an important means of supporting the innovators playing a leading role in this space,” she said.

Since its launch in 2015, VEI has helped startups representing more than 100 countries collectively raise more than $16 billion in funding, with a network that includes nearly 12,000 startups from across the globe.

Last year, VEI awarded more than $530,000 in prize money over the course of the competition, which saw over 4,000 startups participate from five regions.

VEI is seeking innovative and ambitious entrepreneurs who are uplifting communities by solving payment and commerce challenges faced by businesses of all sizes and sectors