Barclays Africa opened its Rise innovation hub in Cape Town's Bandwidth Barn last week, providing start-ups with a physical location to facilitate financial technology (fintech) innovation.
The opening of the innovation hub in Cape Town is the latest expansion within Barclays's global Rise network, which includes London, Manchester and New York.
Part of Barclay's Accelerator programme, Rise is a community "designed to pioneer the future of financial services in Africa.
"Rise provides an opportunity to leapfrog ageing analogue infrastructure deployed in most developed economies, and with it the capacity to solve some of Africa's development challenges," says Ashley Veasey, Barclays Africa chief informationand digital officer.
Derek White, chief design and innovation officer at Barclays added: "By connecting these hotbeds of innovation to each other, we hope to accelerate the development of fintech - both on the continent and globally."
To date, the Rise programme has engaged over 6 500 start-ups in 95 countries and transferred more than 3 000 hours of knowledge, the bank says.
"We want to reach the world with #FinTech solutions that would shape the future of financial services," tweeted @BartclaysAfrivca yesterday.
The Barclays Accelerator
The Barclays Accelerator programme in Africa follows in the footsteps of similar successful programmes hosted in London, New York and Tel Aviv.
The new Rise hub in Cape Town will house the Accelerator programme.
Barclays Accelerator applications for the Cape Town programme are open until 10 January 2016
Powered by Techstars, the programme offers innovators and entrepreneurs access to leading thinkers at Barclays as well as to Techstars' mentor and investor relationships in 14 locations around the world.
"The three-month intensive programme has been designed to accelerate new fintech businesses in delivering breakthrough products to market. What we're offering companies is a seat within a best-in-class accelerator programme, which in turn affords access to data, technology and intensive mentoring from industry experts and key decision makers," says Veasey.
Barclays Accelerator applications for the Cape Town programme are open until 10 January 2016 here. The programme will begin on 28 March 2016 with the 'Demo Days' scheduled for June 2016.
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