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Barclays Africa looks to scale innovative start-ups

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's news editor.
Johannesburg, 31 Jan 2017
Ashley Veasey, group CIO and chief digital officer at Barclays Africa.
Ashley Veasey, group CIO and chief digital officer at Barclays Africa.

The Barclays Africa Accelerator programme, in partnership with Techstars, has opened applications to up-and-coming entrepreneurs looking to scale their innovative start-ups in Africa and abroad.

Start-ups selected for the programme will have an opportunity to learn, as well as expand their presence within the African continent via Barclays Africa Group's customers, technology teams and products.

The accelerator is an intensive 13-week programme designed to accelerate start-ups. Barclays Africa says as well as getting unprecedented access to its network and knowledge base, successful applicants will also gain invaluable insights from some of the smartest minds in the start-up and fintech worlds.

The Barclays Africa Accelerator programme is looking for start-ups with capability in machine learning, lending, digital banking solutions, trading, cyber security, data analytics, payments, cryptocurrency, insurance, wealth management and beyond.

It also seeks a great team, with business and technical capabilities from anywhere in the world, and a commitment to develop a start-up and be based full-time at its accelerator sites for the 13-week programme.

"The reason why fintech is so important for us, as an organisation, as a banking entity, is that our customers are rapidly changing in their requirements and in the way they are banking," says Ashley Veasey, group chief information officer and chief digital officer at Barclays Africa. "The disruption in the market has been introduced mostly by the small fintech companies who have really cool solutions that complement what we do as a bank."

According to Veasey, a lot of banking institutions view this as a threat but Barclays Africa sees this as an opportunity.

"We, as a bank, are quite traditional in our thinking and in our style, but that's changing. We now need bright, young minds to help us spark ideas inside the bank. Those small fintech entrepreneurs need us to help them scale up. So the most important thing for us is to help these young entrepreneurs to engage and connect with the expertise that we have. They need intelligence around how to scale from a small tech company to a large one.

"We employ a whole host of mentors in this programme to deliver something quite special at the end. For us, success is tangible ideas that we can use ourselves to determine the future of banking but also, of course, to help our customers."

He points out that it makes sense for Barclays as a financial services provider to collaborate with financial-technology start-ups. "Using our extensive customer reach and deep expertise, we can help fintech start-ups scale their technologies to provide great new financial services solutions to customers - this way, customers win, start-ups win and we win."

Veasey explains that start-up companies seldom have access to real customer data to test products. He adds that fintech start-ups often face the typical challenges that entrepreneurs in any sector encounter in starting new businesses - these can vary from lack of cash flow to lack of infrastructure to scale products.

"Because fintech start-ups are often not known, and therefore not trusted, it can take long to build a viable customer base. We are looking for as many quality applications as possible and will work with about 10 after a carefully considered selection process."

Click here to apply.

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