Finserve targets Nigeria, others in expansion into e-commerce, remittances markets

Fintech business, Finserve is betting on a new payment platform for customers and businesses across East, Central Africa as well as Nigeria to tap into the region’s e-commerce and remittances markets.

Finserve plans to work with financial services providers and businesses to merge payment options in East and Central Africa on to one payment platform, accessible via mobile apps and online sites, Finserve managing director Jack Ngare said.

“If you are a businessman doing business in, let’s say, Tanzania and you want to move to Uganda, then you can … use our platform as soon as you land in Uganda to accept payments,” he said in an interview.

Ngare said this would mean people would not have to sign up for all the telecoms companies and banks services just to allow customers to pay into their business.

The new service will be available in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

Ngare said the company has ambitions to expand beyond East and Central Africa into other African countries such as Nigeria and South Africa.

Finserve is also targeting the remittances business, where people living outside their home country regularly send money back. Billions of dollars annually are sent to Africa by the continent’s diaspora. The World Bank, for example, estimated remittances to sub-Saharan Africa at $38 billion in 2017.

Finserve is also teaming up with an unnamed fintech firm and six Ethiopian banks to make its remittances platform available in the country.