May 14, 2021
South Africa’s best up and coming fintech startups sweated it out at a virtual demo day yesterday where they had just five minutes each to convince a panel of judges that they should be part of the second phase of the AlphaCode Incubate programme.
The 10 startups, which have just completed a three-month programme, competed for one of four places in an extended six-month programme valued at almost R1,5-million each. Their success, which was validated by their ability to get traction in a short time, unlocks further funding of R500 000 each and tailored business support.
Andile Maseko, head of ecosystem development at AlphaCode, comments: “Despite a tumultuous year, a number of entrepreneurs saw how they could fill a gap in the market for financial services and related industries. Those selected in the top four earned the opportunity for further funding and mentorship. The first part of the intensive programme focused on entrepreneurship and refining business models
Why the cash of the future will be digital and decentralised
3 Apr 2021
Digital wallet: Cash may one day be replaced with country-issued cryptocurrencies, suspects Monica Singer of blockchain company ConsenSys. (Luis Tato/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
When South Africa’s biggest banks released their year-end financial results last month, it became clear that Covid-19 has sped up the move to digital. Each bank saw an increase in digitally active clients and more transactions were done via online banking.
But online banking as we know it is only a small step towards the future of finance, experts say. And for financial institutions, Covid-19 has made this future in which technology used by cryptocurrencies makes banking faster and central banks dole out digital money seem even more imminent.
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Jan 25, 2021
The pandemic in 2020 had a massive impact on the financial services industry, with social distancing and remote shopping driving new demands – and local fintechs are largely filling these niches.
Dominique Collett, senior investment executive at Rand Merchant Investments and the head of AlphaCode, unpacks the organisation’s predictions for 2021.
Each year, at AlphaCode
, we use our vantage point of the fintech landscape to share what we expect this year. We had no idea last January that a whole new world awaited. One that would include global lockdowns, Zoombombing, covidiots, closed borders and quarantining.
AlphaCode is the Rand Merchant Investments (RMI) incubation, acceleration, and investment initiative that identifies, partners, and grows early-stage financial service ventures so we get to see where the interest and focus is in fintech.