PaySika, a digital bank focusing on French-speaking African countries, has announced its partnership with Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program on March 31, 2023. The partnership will provide PaySika with access to Visa’s global network of partners and experts who will help the start-up to expand its services in Central Africa, starting with Cameroon. 

Co-founder and general manager of PaySika, Roger Nengwe, stated that they believe everyone should have easy access to a range of financial services and better manage their money and payments, and the prepaid bank cards offered by PaySika will be free, with a simple application to manage everything independently without having to travel.

PaySika was founded in France in February 2020 by Roger Nengwe and his colleague Stezen Bisselou to provide digital banking solutions to French-speaking African countries where over 80% of the population is unbanked. PaySika aims to offer banking services to as many people as possible at an extremely low cost. The fintech intends to develop mobile banking solutions, responding to the widespread use of mobile money and smartphones in the region, and its first fundraising effort in March 2023 secured €300,000 to help attract new additional profiles and continue its development by creating more fluid, safe services that fulfill user expectations.

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The emergence of regulatory environments conducive to fintechs and the success of the smartphone have encouraged many neobanks in the region to develop digital banking solutions to attract customers. PaySika is not alone in this endeavor, with other start-ups such as Sparkle and Kuda in Nigeria and TymeBank in South Africa raising millions of dollars to expand their operations in Africa.

Why This Partnership Matters

• The partnership between PaySika and Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program signifies a significant boost for PaySika’s operations in Central Africa, particularly in Cameroon. As a start-up developing digital banking solutions for French-speaking African countries where most of the population is unbanked, PaySika will benefit from access to Visa’s growing network of partners and experts, who can guide them towards efficient ways to offer banking services to as many people as possible, and at an extremely low cost.

• By joining Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program, PaySika will be able to extend its services rapidly and gradually, providing free prepaid bank cards with a simple application to manage everything independently without having to travel. This will bring strong added value to its users, particularly the new generation, for whom there is a strong appetite for this kind of service.

• In summary, the partnership with Visa adds substance to PaySika by providing it with the necessary resources to accelerate its operations in Central Africa, particularly in Cameroon. With access to Visa’s growing network of partners and experts, PaySika can now offer free prepaid bank cards with a simple application to manage everything independently without having to travel, and this will bring strong added value to its users, particularly the new generation.

PaySika Visa PaySika Visa

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. 
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard