Technology Companies

What’s the first thing you do when planning a holiday? If you are one of the millions of users of a service like TripAdvisor, you probably check what other travelers have to say about a particular destination or a place to stay. One bad review and you may think twice before booking.

What if you could do the same for a company you were dealing with? How good is the company’s track record? How easy is it to get payments from the company?

FinTech may be an evolving sector within payments, at times with so much fluidity that would-be customers may not know just what they can glean from those new companies, especially when it comes to banking and moving money across borders.

Could you please tell us a bit about the banking sector in Turkey?

We may describe Turkish banking sector as strong, innovative, modern and well-regulated.  Banks in Turkey have been highly enthusiastic about using new technologies to reach and engage with their customers. They are also very successful in adopting and launching innovative technologies for the first time in the world.

The global fintech industry, with an estimated 12,000 fintechs and counting, has changed the way small businesses can manage their money in all kinds of ways.

A small business in Huddersfield or Cardiff can manage online payments with Stripe, take card payments with iZettle, borrow peer-to-peer via Funding Circle, raise equity via Crowdcube, discount outstanding payments via Market Invoice, manage expenses with Xero, send money abroad via TransferWise, and do much more.

Payments are nowadays widely considered to be gateways for financial inclusion. Withdrawing money or repaying a loan are basic financial transactions without which traditional financial products like credit, savings and insurance would not be possible.

In a global investment landscape that at times appears rife with uncertainty and beset by bubbles and busts, two main areas stand out both as pockets of opportunity and as major forces for change: sustainable, responsible and impact (SRI) investing—that is, investment that considers environmental, social and governance criteria as well as returns—and financial technology, or fintech, which is revolutionising how financial services are delivered. Both of these sectors have attracted massive investor interest in recent times and are poised to transform the way people invest and transact in th

In 2011, Brett King was promoting his book, “Breaking Banks,” and creating a start-up that he hoped would do to the banks what Amazon did to the retail industry and Facebook did to media. “We had grand ideas of being the Facebook of banking, and being a new form of bank account,” Mr. King said recently. Six years later, his company, Moven, has opened only 60,000 of those new bank accounts. Mr. King has now transitioned to selling his software to the banks he once scorned, who use it as a component of their mobile apps.

The Digital Lenders Association of India (DLAI), a private association formed by leading Fintech companies in the online lending space such as KredX, Capital Float, Lendingkart, Finomena, Rubique, Zest Money, Indialends and Neogrowth, has released a report entitled Union Budget 2017: Impact of Digital Financial Services. The report, published in partnership with PwC, analyses the measures around digital payments, online lending and the reduction in taxes for MSMEs.

Ecobank has earmarked $500,000 (about Rwf410 million) to support startups and young innovators across the African continent.The funds are part of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge 2017 meant to support young entrepreneurs on the continent.However, entrepreneurs will first convince the Pan-African lender by showcasing bankable business plans and innovative solutions before they can benefit from the fund, said Ade Ayeyemi, the Ecobank Group CEO.