Zeepay, Digitising Ghana’s Economy One Remittance at a Time
Africa’s fragmented markets and lack of legacy foreign exchange trading infrastructure means that the continent has become a melting pot of fintech activity and innovation. The emergence of fintech in Ghana has sparked a tremendous increase in domestic and cross-border payments. The mobile money industry within Ghana has witnessed stiff competition between Telcos, such as MTN Ghana and licensed service providers in the digital sector. One of the most prominent service providers is Zeepay, which facilitates mobile money payments, domestic transfers and international remittances.
Despite the upsurge in the number of banks in Ghana, approx. 70% of the population remains unbanked. Zeepay intends to address this disparity by focusing on providing integrated mobile payment services with mobile wallets targeting the unbanked and banked population with the objective of bringing the unbanked into the financial stream. Financial inclusion is embedded in Zeepay’s DNA with its principal goal being that of including 50% of the unbanked population into its rapidly growing digital ecosystem.
Zeepay has also zoned into the remittance industry with the global remittance industry reaching a record high of USD 613 Bn in 2017. Ghana is the third largest remittance recipient in Africa currently at USD 2.2 Bn. Unlike many other institutions, Zeepay focuses on reducing the high cost of remittances securing a loyal customer base. Zeepay has also teamed up with the Ghanaian governments initiative of digitising payments. Not only does this reduce costs associated with travelling to government outlets to make payments, it also brings about transparency eliminating fraud and corruption, which enables government to improve services to citizens.
Verdant Capital is currently advising Zeepay on a minority capital raise.