Eleven (11) years after its launch in Brazil, payments startup; EBANX has now evolved into a billion dollar company with an estimated total of one (1) billion completed transactions across fifteen (15) countries.
It made a name for itself by facilitating payment transactions between mobility as a service provider; Uber, digital music service; Spotify and their respective users residing in Latin America.
The company is now looking to get into the African continent beginning with launches in Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria.
In October of 2021, EBANX filed the documents for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the United States (US). The process however, geared into a slower pace due to the still ongoing economic situation.
The payment company is looking to utilize the steady growing digital economy spurred on by the corresponding growth in the fintech sector on the continent with companies like OPay, MFS Africa, as well as Flutterwave.
Read Also: Flutterwave And Airtel Money Enter Into Partnership For East Africa
The co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of EBANX; João Del Valle likened the current state of the fintech sector in Africa to what was prevalent in Latin America in 2012 when the company launched.
Although the digital economy in Africa is growing at a fast pace due to the fintech companies on the continent João Del Valle made it known via a statement that, “only in its early days, and it’s projected to grow up and to the right for the next few decades.”
It is projected that for the first year of EBANX’s launch in Africa, it will operate more of a potential partner and student of the dominant market players in Africa’s fintech scene.
Read Also: Flutterwave’s Valuation Now At 3 Billion US Dollars
EBANX will be actively learning from the electronic fund transfer capabilities of fintech company; OZOW (formerly known as i-Pay) in South Africa, the omnipresence of Safaricom’s mobile phone-based money transfer service, payments and micro-financing service; M-Pesa in Kenya, as well as Nigeria’s super efficient use of bank transfers and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) more commonly known as feature codes or quick codes which make it easier for users who do not have smartphones, to carry out transactions.
The three (3) countries mentioned above, control half of Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). They are also among the biggest markets in Africa for financial technology (fintech), with each having different levels of penetration with regards to methods for carrying out digital payments.
South Africa for instance where the use of physical cash in e-commerce transactions is at a mere nine (9) percent, could become a major market for EBANX. It will however, have to compete with Paystack which is owned by Stripe, as well as South African payments company; Yoco which has evolved from only offering payment terminals, to processing web payments.
Its wealth of expertise from its time in the Latin American market could come in handy during WBANX’s expansion into Africa.
Another reason why the fintech company has set its sights on the African continent is because of the similarities between traditional financial systems and developing economies with regards to the challenges they face. Some observers believe the startups in Latin America have in some way inspired those in Africa.
Read Also: Next Bitcoin Halving Set For Q4 2023 As BTC Hash Rate Hits New All-Time High
For example, Kuda which is one of the digital banking companies operating in Nigeria is believed to have been modeled after Nubank; the most valuable digital bank in the world.
African startups have also began to commence expansion efforts into Brazil. Embedded lending platform; Migo has begun implement the credit as a business service it launched in Nigeria, to Brazil.
In Latin America EBANX has over the years faced competition Uruguayan payments company; dLocal which is currently listed on National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (Nasdaq).
Read Also: Safaricom Launches New Interest Free Credit Service For Goods Purchases Via M-Pesa
In January of 2021 EBANX raised a total of 439 million United States Dollars (USD). Sadly in June of 2022, it had to lay off a fifth of its employees in a bid to more effectively tackle the present economic situation worldwide.
According to Head of global payments at EBANX; Paula Bellizia the fintech company intends to launch products in Africa that will, “build the digital economy at a rapid pace.”
With Africa just now beginning to harness the immense potential in the fintech sector, the possibilities really are endless.
How informative was this particular article? Are there any other news topics, categories, or How To topics, that you would like us to write on? Feel free to reach out to Nexbit KE in the comment section.
